Agency Reality
By TC Lynch ©2001
Within three weeks, four at the most, I'll be on the street. Billy Gibson said the street finds its own use for things, but I doubt it'll have use for me. I'll probably just dissipate with some morning's fog. I hope I'm asleep when it happens.
This morning I sat in the reception area of another employment agency, waiting for the smiling bitch behind the reception desk to usher me into the sanctum of social salvation. I'd been in such rooms fifty-eight times in the last twenty days; they must clone the women who guard their doors. I had three more appointments for the afternoon. Then I would run out of resumes; there was no money left to print any more. I'd have to sit back and wait for one of these fuckers to call me. I'm probably good at that by now. The flaxen factotem came out from behind the professional palisade with her hundred-watt smile running at full throttle. I rose from the couch, straightened my tie, said a quick prayer, and returned the teeth. Mine weren't happy, but they faked it well.
"Your résumé's very impressive, Mr. Murphy," she said as she led me to through the inner door. "Good luck!"
"Any luck," I said. My heart started kicking hard in my chest as I seated myself in one of two chairs that faced a huge mahogany desk. I'd gone through this process so many times, you'd think I'd have been used to it. But the juice still kicked in every time, sending my nerves into overdrive, hoping that this time would be the last.
Across the wooden divide, a woman was sitting, scanning my paperwork. She was dressed in the typical corporate outfit, lacking in flash but portraying cash. Two strands of translucent pearls hung effortlessly around her neck. As I settled into the chair, she looked up, flashed the briefest of smiles. I returned the effort but she'd gone back to the file, making a note of something.
Before me was Athena and Diana, Juliet and Jane Eyre, Madonna and Mom, all grafted together and somehow distilled into a singular female form. A stone cold fox, with the keys to happiness nestled in her Rolodex. And she'd scribbled a note before I'd even opened my mouth.
A glass building began to crash to the ground somewhere; I acted like I didn't notice. I glanced at the potted plants surrounding the office instead, and attempted to brush away any stray flakes of dandruff that may have settled on my shoulders. She closed the file and looked up at me.
"Good morning, Mr. Murphy," she said. "I'm Alice DeSavio." She half-rose from her chair and offered me her hand. I leaned forward and limply grasped four fingers for a moment, then returned to my seat.
"Chris," I said. "Chris, Ms. DeSavio. Thanks for seeing me."
"My pleasure, Chris. Call me Alice."
"Okay, Alice."
"Now then, what exactly are you looking for, Chris?" Alice said. "Your resume lists quite a bit of experience in commodities, but you know what they're like these days." Alice leaned back in her chair, light from the office's lone window touching her, igniting red highlights in the yellow/brown mane that flowed to her shoulders.
"Frankly, there aren't many slots open for someone with your background."
I looked past her, out the window. Beyond the Hudson, just past the Meadowlands sports complex, an orange and black glow roiled along the horizon, coming fast from the south. I closed and rubbed my eyes, trying to find a response that would put me in some kind of favorable light.
"At this point, Alice, I'm open to anything. Not fancy, just something to pay my bills. I have no problem with entry-level."
"Well, I mainly have secretarial slots listed," she said.
Alice was singing the opening bars to a song I'd been hearing for so long it's become permanently lodged in my brain. I call it "The Loser's Lament." Low wage, go nowhere jobs for women were plentiful enough, according to the people I'd spoken with. But I'm stuck on the Tough Shit list. Two years of college after ten years of working doesn't cut it. Welcome to the Nightmare Nineties. The pinstripes draped over my frame were the only respectable clothes I had left. The rest had been sold to thrift shops, along with my other possessions. My last real meal was two days ago. I thought she was the one ready to save me, give me a taste of the economic host, but her voice didn't sounding salvational then.
"Look, I'll do anything...absolutely anything," I said, leaning forward. The chair made a sucking sound as I shifted, trying to keep its grip on the back of my suit jacket. I jerked an arm free and straightened my tie. "I just want to work."
"Your background makes it hard to place you," Alice replied, toying with the folder containing my paperwork as it rested obediently on her desk. I noticed her green, tapered fingernails beginning to fade yellow as she played with the file. Brown cracks seeped into them, darkening their lustre. Drops of blood slipped from her cuticles. I moved my bag from the floor to my lap, squeezing its handles together as it laid there, offering no support.
"Why, Alice?" I said, anger welling up from my belly, filling my mouth, making my teeth scrape against each other as I tried to hold the heat inside from erupting. "I spent all that time working steady gigs, then went back to school and picked up a degree. I'm no punk kid fresh from a BA program with no idea of how the real world works. How does that make it hard for me? Your clients should be drooling for the likes of me."
I saw a slight rustle in the Alice's hair. Two small humps began rising on her upper forehead, peeking through sunshine bangs. Out the window, closer than before, the storm was piling up on the Jersey side of the river, big boomers massing together, beginning to block out the sun.
"What exactly have you been doing lately?" Alice asked. Her voice, first precise and emotionless, had a slight lilt to it, was almost cheery. "I mean, you've been getting by on savings, right?"
"Yeah, savings," I said, ''They ran out about a week ago. I'm living on hope right now."
"That's not too smart."
"That's why I've been in a hundred places like this," I said, running a hand through my hair, flicking away tiny flies that had begun buzzing around me. I sat back in the chair, allowing it to hug me. My valise, previously resting quietly in my lap, protecting the last of my life story sheets, began to weep beige rivulets that streamed down my legs and puddled on the floor. I rubbed the bag softly. It began to purr, but the tears still came. Shimmering green beetles scuttled out from under Alice's desk to drink from the puddle at my feet. A few clambered up on my shoes and began nipping at my socks. I crossed my legs and brushed them aside.
"C'mon, Alice."
"Rita, she said. "Call me Rita."
"Yeah, right, whatever. Listen, Rita. I have to find something today. I'll do anything."
The bumps had grown and joined, forming a ridge above her blue eyes, shading them. Her hair had thickened and greyed slightly; small, greasy tufts clumped together about her ears.
"When you say 'anything,' Chris," she said, her voice gone lower, so deep it resonated in my bones, "Just what do you mean?" She smiled at me, her teeth glittering in the orange glare filtering through the window. Her tongue darted out from between them, a thick, veiny, writhing snake flittering along gleaming, pointy edges.
"What do you want me to mean?" I said. I could hear the plants rustling, jostling each other behind me, but didn't bother looking. A brown something swooped on the window and dove out of sight moments before impact. "I'm desperate enough to do damn near anything at this point."
Alice rose from her desk, groaning slightly. She kicked her chair away and picked up my file, turning toward the window, leafing through the thin folder containing my life. I watched the chair roll away from the desk. A steel phallus welded to its seat gleamed wetly as it rolled through a thin shaft of sunlight.
The storm had moved, was wrapped around the building, banging against the window like an uninvited guest. Flashes of light beyond the clouds limned the flapping wings of grotesque gargoyles hidden in their bowels. Rita turned her head towards the window, her eyes peering out from below their hood. They sparkled brightly in the shadow the ridge created. She placed her hands against the glass, made a small cooing sound and stretched like a cat at its scratching post. She turned around and smiled at me again, revealing small, yellowing teeth that had flecks of black along their edges. She pressed her ass against the glass and rubbed her hands slowly, heavily along her stockings and skirt, twin ladders springing to life from her hem to her knees.
"Anything?" she asked, slipping off her suit jacket and tossing it onto the chair, where it entwined itself around the steel shaft.
"Anything."
She took my file and hurled it upward as heavy ropes of muscle began bulging through her clothes. It struck the ceiling and burst into flames, pages floating lightly down around us. She grabbed and yanked her blue satin blouse down, puffs of dust exploding as stitches burst along the seams. A smell of rotting vegetation and musk flooded the office as she sauntered around from behind the desk, smiling.
Through the window, I could see New Jersey burning below a brimstone rain. The potted plants surrounding us had sprouted heavy, rubbery leaves that floated in a dank, putrid breeze. The carpet thrummed beneath my feet. My dick began groaning in my pants, setting off the valise, which howled in expectation, tears again streaming from it, setting off a feeding frenzy at my feet.
"Chris," she said, her voice inviting, alluring. "I fill the positions I list with people that fit. I can't send you anywhere. I'll lose business if I do." She began to rub against the side of my chair, flakes of dried flesh catching on the fabric. I brushed a few from my sleeve, fluttering down to the floor to land on the beetles' backs like snowflakes.
"None of your clients need someone who'll work cheap?" A single drop of spit had slipped from her full, cracked lips and was winding its way along the cleft between her breasts, released from their cloth constraints, swaying freely with every move she made.
"It's not the money, Chris," Rita said. "It's you. I'll need to work with you...get you ready before I can send you to anyone. You need to be trained, refined."
She crouched down, one hand stroking my leg as her other dangled at her side. She ran her hand along my thigh, a thin ocher juice trailing from her fingers, seeping into me. I placed my right hand over hers -- it's texture was like cracked leather, and was cold, yet the area below it was on fire as she massaged her way to my upper thigh, rubbing harder, fingers dancing, biting, probing. My brain began shrieking, but was drowned out by the howling coming from my pants. My dick was bellowing, demanding extrication. I looked out the window as the storm crashed through it, lashing through the room, tearing the valise from my hands. I watched it sail toward the empty hole where the window once was. One of the creatures I had glimpsed in the clouds was hovering there. Its tail flicked out and snagged the valise by a handle, allowing the pages inside to sail free and disappear into the black sky. It brought the valise up to its mouth, and I could here my bag screaming as the thing devoured it.
"You want I come back tomorrow?" I said. "Do some training?"
Alice fell back on the undulating rug, millions of beetles quickly enveloping her, skittering along her arm to the mass of mange between her legs. Her fingers were digging into the flesh of my arm, pulling me, trying to drag me out of the chair.
"No," Rita said. "We can do it right now."
My dick exploded, hot, wet fire mixing with Rita's juice, burning my legs awake. The shrieking from my brain finally reached my ears, and I stumbled out of the chair and fell to one knee next to Rita. Her head arched back and her mouth opened, beetles quickly scurrying to the opening while she scooped a handful up and rammed them past her teeth. Yellow ooze trickled down her cheeks. Her jaw snapped closed. The thing at the window was sitting in Rita's chair, its head lolling back, giggling like a child, a scrap of my bag wiggling in a corner of its mouth. Rita reached for me but I was up and backing away, toward the door, flailing at myself to get the crawling, snapping beetles off me while trying to keep the screaming in my brain from blowing the top of my skull off. The ridge on her forehead was a mesh of throbbing purple and grey veins and I could feel blood begin pouring from my nose.
I tore branches away from the door while she slithered toward me on the rug, her eyes flashing green and gold, something undulating along her spine, under the tattered blue blouse. I grasped the grey, pulsating doorknob and pulled, vines snapping loose along the door's frame. I slammed the door shut behind me and headed for the elevator. Rita was screaming as a deep, bellows blown roar shook the floor beneath me. I heard a wet, thick cracking sound and her screams stopped, replaced by the beast's roaring laughter, chasing me past the elevators to the staircase, echoing off the metals steps as I ran and bounced down, down, down.
I came out of the building gasping as beasts in smart business suits walked to and fro along Broadway, soft expletives floating like baby's breath through the air as they gurgled to each other, averting their eyes as they neared me. I leaned against the building's cool stone facade, ignoring the tendrils of succubi vines that teased and twisted along my flank. A fragment of beige leather it's edges chewed and frayed, was on the pavement between my feet. I slumped down on the cold ground, picked it up and pressed it against my chest, murmuring apologies.
High above me I heard great beating wings heading east as the sun cast a lone beam from between scudding black clouds, striking the pavement a few paces from my feet, setting the ground on fire. I looked at my watch and realized I'd be late for my next appointment.
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Contact TC Lynch at: lynch@leatherpenguin.com