The best way to prove you’re not a loser is to stop following the examples of your friends
Proving Your Critics Wrong
Small tales
Mort locked the men’s room door, ignored the no smoking sign, fired a Bond cigarette and leaned against the automatic flush box to practice his smoke rings. And his visualization. The name is Bond. Mort Bond. Men cower and women wet themselves at the mention of my name. His buddies smoked West Fusions, also a cool name, but fusion didn’t say ‘manly’ the way Bond did.
Someone rapped on the door. “I’ll be out in a minute,” he lied. He rolled the cigarette between his fingers, watching the smoke drift toward the vent.
“Put that cigarette out, Bumbox. I’m tired of warning you.”
The name was Birnbaum, not Bumbox. Mort Birnbaum (Birnbaum-Bond), but that didn’t stop the losers from jerking him off. How’d he get the name Birnbaum, anyway? His father wasn’t even Jewish.
The name is Bond. Mort Bond. Men cower and women wet themselves at the mention of my name. His buddies smoked West Fusions, also a cool name, but fusion didn’t say ‘manly’ the way Bond cigarettes did.
The arcade manager banged on the door once again and Mort pitched his butt in the toilet bowl. He put his fist to his mouth to stop his snickering. Butt in the bowl. He’d have to remember that for when the gang was piling into the Diamond Lady’s men’s room.
He pushed open the door and stepped with pride as he resumed his position at the Vintage Eighties Pac-Man machine. The machine no one fucked with because they knew he was the Pac-Manster of the Keister Bridge Borough. You’d never catch him wasting his time on 12K 4D over cranked on steroids games like Rampage or The Walking Dead.
A hand fell across his shoulder, a hand whose fingers turned his shoulder blades into silly putty. Old Spice and stale cigar smoke blitzkrieged his sinuses. No need to look behind him. It was Old Man Ranger, the Arcade’s owner, who his buddies swore was an ex-Seal flunking anger management.
“I told you if I caught you smoking in my can again, I’d ban you’d for life.” Ranger steered Mort toward the mall corridors more smoothly than Mort had ever steered a Formula One racer on the game consoles. The old man pushed the glass door open with his shoulder, lifted his foot and booted Mort with so much force he collided with the kiosk selling cell phone screen protectors.
Everyone knew Mort was the Pac-Manster of the Keister Bridge Borough. You’d never catch him wasting his time on 12K 4D over cranked on steroids games like Rampage or The Walking Dead.
Mort brushed his jeans. “I was just doing you a favor. The Dave and Busters on the north end has a better arcade than yours.”
Ranger stepped back into the store, holding the door open with the palm of his hand. “What are you? Twenty-six? Seven? I’ll bet you’re still living at home writing the code that will make you a trillion dollars instead of looking for an actual job.” As the door closed behind him, the word “loser” floated between them like a fat raspberry about to blow gas in his face.
His mom also called him a loser when he entered the house and turned on his Play Station 3. What right did adults have to call him a loser? He’d show them. He looked for work every day, at least half an hour browsing online. Half an hour more than his buddies, Bev and Brody, did. He’d move out the minute a major firm offered him a CEO position.
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Wry noir author Phillip T. Stephens wrote Cigerets, Guns & Beer, Raising Hell, the Indie Book Award winning Seeing Jesus, and the children’s book parody Furious George. Follow him at Phillip T Stephens.
