"The Doom Statues" - Chapter 9

“Lenny! Get over here!” the foreman, Bob Griffin, barks at him from across the muddy expanse of their work site.

Rivet gun in hand, Lenny was en route to the makeshift elevator, which would take him to the upper, skeletal reaches of this high rise in progress. Had only sort of halfway slowed down to horse around with a couple of coworkers, discuss some random woman they’d spotted walking down the sidewalk during lunch. But must now reverse course and jog over to see what it is his boss wants.

“Yes, sir?”

“What’s this?” Griffin asks, bringing one hand around from behind his back to reveal a tall green metal thermos.

“What do you mean?” Lenny shrugs, though already aware where this surely headed, and attempting to keep his face from dropping into the mud as a result, “it’s what I keep my coffee in.”

Grimacing, Griffin unscrews the lid and shoves the thermos under Lenny’s nose. “Hmm. Well, I’d say you’ve been keeping a little bit more than coffee in here, wouldn’t you? What would you say this smells like? Go ahead, give ‘er a good whiff.”

Lenny does as instructed, although there’s no real reason to. Already, he’s begun enacting his defense, stammering, “yeah, but today, uh...”

And what he’s starting to say is that he hasn’t been drinking on the job today, as it turns out, which is true. Yet he stumbles over the realization of how a) how ridiculous this sounds, b) how it doesn’t matter anyway, and c) almost adding that he hasn’t been drinking on the job at all this week, but knowing this is untrue, and thinking about a course correction at the last minute by naming the specific number of days, except he’s not 100% sure about this, either, whether it was Monday or Tuesday, and also realizing that this too would sound ridiculous and not make a difference regardless.

Griffin now sticks the thermos under his own nose and wiggles it back and forth, inhaling deeply. “I’d say this smells like rum, wouldn’t you? And not especially expensive rum at that. Can we agree that this smells like cheap rum?”

Lenny half nods and half shrugs all at once, as his foreman barges onward with this inevitable series of points. “Okay, now let’s suppose, you’re about, oh, I don’t know, four of five stories high,” Griffin suggests, pointing at a section of exposed beam towering above them, casting his eyes skyward for a second. Lenny’s reflexively drift up there as well, before returning to stare one another down again.

“Now, let’s suppose you have an – oh, I don’t know – let's suppose you have a giant fucking drill up there with you. So there you are, cruising along with your rum and your giant fucking drill, and everything’s going just fine. You with me so far?”

Lenny just slowly nods, now, fighting off an urge to simply walk off this job site and spare himself the embarrassment. But these boss figures don’t end up commanding large swaths of men by chance, and there’s an intimidation factor, as well as some measure of mesmerization, to keep him rooted right here.

“Good,” Griffin nods once himself, satisfied. “Now let’s suppose you happen to let go of that giant fucking drill. Understand I’ve got – what – two dozen men running around down here on this site, yours truly included. Now what do you suppose is gonna happen if you accidentally let go of that drill from four or five stories high?”

Lenny only shrugs, feeling yet again like a high schooler rather than the 32 year old, up to this second gainfully employed adult that he is. Which wouldn’t be the first time, true, and is surely an outcome of his own creation. Yet it’s kind of getting old, all the same. He hasn’t even technically been fired yet, but is already kicking himself in the pants.

“You don’t know? Well, I’ve got a pretty good mental picture!” Griffin barks, “but I’d rather not see a real life reenactment of it! Now get the fuck out of here!” He hands Lenny the empty thermos and adds, “you can pick up your final paycheck next Thursday.”

With this, Griffin turns and stomps off to another corner of the site. Lenny stands staring after him for a second, dumbfounded, thermos in hand. He glances around and observes almost nobody is paying any attention to this spectacle, as they all continue about their business, and this fills him with an even greater despair, somehow, than a bunch of jeering leers. Having no other choice or say in the matter, he turns in the opposite direction and trudges reluctantly off the grounds.

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