< Episode 5: “Cafe Chestnut” | Episode 7: “Kidding” >
“Honey, I’m…!”
Benny stopped mid-sentence and grunted unintelligibly instead, such was the effort required to creak open the door with all the shoes and sandals stuck underneath; a necessary vice in Greatland, where footwear is even more important than food if one wants to be alright…
Eventually he managed to sweep everything aside with his foot, before carefully tiptoeing his way inside in between expensive sneakers and moccasins. Some of them were his: a pair of brand new sneakers that he only wore during sports-related activities (anything else would be direly sagged), a extra pair or two of loafers for going to work, a pair of sandals dating from back when the pools still had water in them. That was a long time ago…
The last time he remembered going to the pool was with his young child in tow. That had been the first and only time that the kid had undergone such an experience; surely as the years rolled on, he would forget all about it. But Benny would remember. He still had the pictures in his mind, clear as day; just the thought of holding the toddler up above the water in the shallow end, with its little yellow floaters and blue swimming goggles, made him smile as he cautiously progressed his way through the microscopic hallway, into the living room.
He poked his head out from the hallway; his smile flickered slightly at the sight of what his child had become: a hypnotized automaton, soaking in the images and sounds while sitting on a small couch full of holes. He looked at the massive slab of plasma and plastic on the wall, which currently squawked away to the tune of the White House Fam kids channel, and wished for a fleeting moment that they hadn’t gotten such an intrusively sized model. The living room being as small as it was, there was barely enough space for a small couch in addition to the massive screen, but nothing else. Just a floor with a rug, a couch and a humungous television screen.
But buying too small of a television could be a sign of saggedness, and everyone knew that depending on the mood of the Bro Cop doing the investigating… Well let’s just say that the Bro Code was clear enough on that issue:
“You raise ’em as long as you respect ‘em”
Of course, respect meant whatever definition happened to ebb through the White House Fam channel on a given day. Shoes, T.V.s, whatever it was; Benny had to buy it so his kids would grow up healthy and alright. Which was why he bought the oversized television, so that the Kid Bros wouldn’t come and take his child away. And he kept it on, so that his child would get all the alright influences it needed to grow properly. And he headed for the kitchen, because having said all this he still couldn’t stand the shattering din of voices and noise, which was always dimmer when he stood in the kitchen.
Speaking of standing in the kitchen…
His life partner was there, waiting for him. With her arms crossed, she leaned her back against the railing of the “stove”, if one could call it that. There wasn’t much else to it except a heating chamber for rendering blocks of biomass and synthetic gelatine edible, and a cheap bell that didn’t even ring half the time. Which was no doubt why Maureen Steiner Prague was standing there, making sure that the marinated blob of pseudo-chicken didn’t melt away into oblivion for fault of too much roasting.
“Ah, err, good evening there,” Benny half chuckled, half trembled as he stooped over to give his life partner a kiss.
While his lips were still on her cheek, he stole a glance at the digital clock over the stove and cringed at his excessive lateness. As for Maureen, even while smiling pleasantly for the eyeballs on the walls, she exhibited that special kind of silent frigidity that made it clear to Benny that although their household looked alright, it sure wasn’t the case between the two of them.
“I’m sor…”
“This is the third time this month, Benny!” she exclaimed, trailing off into forced giggling near the end (rumour had it that some of the eyes could automatically measure alrightiness in the sound waves of a person’s voice). “You’re always late, you never call…”
“I know!” Benny beamed. “I’m sorry, this time I promise it was completely out of my control, I…”
“And the kid, he’s always complaining because he…”
Benny, with fierce, wide open eyes (yet still grinning), made a loud clearing-his-throat noise to interrupt her.
“It…”
Maureen fumed at him (he could see the fire in her eyes), but she corrected herself nonetheless.
“…It’s hungry because you always come home late and we have to wait for you…”
“I know…”
“And I had to put up with all the banging from upstairs all afternoon and I’m tired of all this nonsense, Benny!”
“Wait, hold on, what’s that about banging upstairs?”
“You know, the guy who moved in last month? He’s saving up to apply at the Bro Cop Academy so he has to work out in his flat and the music and…”
“You can’t call him yourself?”
At this Maureen laughed out loud, for real this time.
“After we ran into each other last week… are you kidding? He knows where I live now, Benny, he knows what I look like. Look at me, Benny: do you really think he’s going to listen to this?”
“Well you look more than alright to me…”
“No, Benny, he won’t. He’s just going to get mad and I don’t want someone like that getting mad at me while you’re still at work, especially if you’re always RUNNING LATE…”
“Okay, okay, fine! I’ll call him!”
“But don’t take too long!” Maureen called out after him as he retreated to the restroom, smartphone in hand, to call the dreaded man from upstairs. “It’s going to get cold!”
“Just set the table, this is only gonna take a minute, I promise!”
What a load of wishful thinking that was. If the younger iteration of Denny was boorish, it was nothing compared to their new neighbour. Benny had seen him walking around outside while going to work one morning: a tanked, ill-shaven creature, wearing a striped tight-shirt and skinny jeans and a strap back with a neon-green visor. From the looks of it, his arms were too big for his own good, so much so that he waddled around aimlessly, clueless as to what to do with them.
And now Benny was forced to reason with him. Or try to, at the very least; it was probably best for him to manage his expectations…
After several rings, Benny was on the verge of giving up. Unfortunately, the Bro Cop hopeful did answer eventually.
“Huh?” he grunted.
“Hello, err, Josh is it?”
“Who’s calling?”
“I’m, err, I’m the neighbour from downstairs…”
Silence.
“Err, h-how are you this evening?”
“Good.”
“Oh, great! Excellent… Listen, um, Josh, I, uh, I was calling because… Well, the thing is, there’s…. There’s a lot of noise coming in through the ceiling and my wife, you see…”
“The sag cunt that lives downstairs?”
Benny (still smiling), gritted his teeth and paused, waiting for the non-alright things to fade out of his mind before speaking again.
“Your music is very loud, and it’s bothering me and my family,” he resolved to growl, all the while picturing himself smashing a glass bottle in the gorilla’s face.
“Oh.”
Silence, again.
“Look, Mister,” the Bro Cop potential sighed. “My music is really not loud. Like, when I’m playing it I can barely hear it. But whatever… Look, you might want to get your woman checked out. I’m thinking maybe her sag ears don’t work right…”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Yeah, it’s okay for now, like…”
“Thank you so much.”
“Okay. Bye.”
“Yes, bye…”
But the line was already dead.
Benny wasn’t sure how to feel about what had just happened. In some sense, he felt incredibly relieved that it was over. But he also felt the same twinge of negativity he had experienced only hours earlier while running away from his meet-up with Denny…
Powerless, exposed; at the mercy of a force that had nothing to gain and nothing to lose about exerting control over his own well-being…
He didn’t feel very hungry as he crept out of the rest room and joined his family at the scrawny dinner table. But he had to lead by example, so he sat down, picked up the “separator” (technically some sort of bread knife, but without any teeth and dull beyond redemption; perfect for dividing up gelatine pseudo-food into individual portions) and went about carving up the bio-chicken. His stomach, being profoundly disturbed already as it were, felt sick as he watched the amorphous blob of matter quiver at the touch of his instrument, only to split with a squeamish, squishy sound as he applied pressure.
The only utensils and dishes on the table consisted of paper cups, which they tirelessly reused until they disintegrated, plastic forks and knives, and a single, paper-thin aluminum plaque used to carry the food from the heater onto the table. As for their food, it was edible and was supposed to be infused with the synthetic taste of barbecue chicken, but it looked revolting all the same. Even then, the three members of Benny’s family grinned ear to ear as they patiently waited for Benny to plop the servings down on their placemats.
Once everyone had been served, they picked up their utensils and started eating.
For a little while, they masticated and swallowed their bio-mass, silently and peacefully.
Then…
Cacophony.
The dreary drone of a bass drum pounded through the ceiling, to the point where dust and plaster trickled from between the gyps tiles and sprinkled their bio-mass. A dull bass hook whooped at regular intervals in between the thunderclaps, confirming somewhat the musicality of the mindless discord.
Benny gripped his fork so hard that it snapped in his hand. With her trembling lips, Maureen was clearly on the verge of tears. As for their child, it chewed on the matter with not a care in the world, completely oblivious as to why its parents were disturbed.
But the eyes on the walls were looking…
So Benny stood up straight in his chair and smiled at his life partner. Maureen swallowed up her disarray and beamed back at him. Their child kept on chewing.
Benny wanted to give Future Bro Cop Josh another call. But they were eating right now, and it wasn’t alright to interrupt a meal with a phone call, no matter the gravity of the situation. Plus, he wanted to lead by example…
So he stomped the ground with his heel to the beat of Josh’s music, and he gritted his teeth in between mouthfuls.
And he smiled that beautiful, hellish, happy smile, so that the cameras could see that he was a good citizen, that they all were an alright, happy family.
But no, seriously; this time Maureen didn’t need to nag him.
After dinner, he would make a call and fix this. The time for being nice and submissive was over. This wasn’t like with Denny, who was untouchable by virtue of his White House Fam credentials. No, this was nothing like that. In this particular case, Benny didn’t care how big Josh was, or how poor he was, or how much he wanted to become a Bro Cop…
This was not alright: Josh was making things not alright. And because of that, there was hell to pay. And there would be hell to pay! Because now, Benny had a friend in the White House Fam…
Deep down, he still felt uneasy about contacting Denny. Surely, this meant that he would have to meet up with him again. But for some reason, this seemed like a small price to pay to get what he wanted: peace of mind for the rest of this evening and making things right by Maureen before tonight, when the kid is in bed and it’s just the two of them…
So after dinner, Benny would make a call and make everything alright.
For now, the bass kept on pounding and the tune kept on whooping. But Benny did bother focusing on it anymore. Instead, he mulled over a thought as he mindlessly chewed on what tasted like protein play-dough: revenge. Not just on the neighbour upstairs, but also, most importantly of all, on his own sense of insecurity.
And it made him chuckle in between bites; for real this time.
It made him happy.
GREATER/STRONGER — A Micro-Novel
To be continued…
