Rest Stop Villas
Short fiction by Drew Bufalini as published in Medium and Scars magazines.
Will’s first job after graduating from Michigan was as a junior consultant with McDonald Weatherbee Force, the country’s oldest accounting consultancy and the first rung on the corporate ladder for every master-of-the-universe type with a limitless ego and arrogance oozing from their ears. He suited up for work at 5am and commuted sixty minutes into the city for his first day. Will was so apprehensive that the closer he got to Detroit, the more he felt a case of nervous bladder coming on. One minute he was fine, the next he was forced into a seriously convenient rest stop off I-94.
Nearly empty and quiet except for the sporadic freeway traffic with semi air horns raising the alarm and fading into the distance. Between the highway and the building with bathrooms, eighteen wheelers and their drivers snoozed away the earliest hours. The opposite side of the rest stop building seemed reserved for cars and... tents? Will’s teeth floating, he peered inside. The rest stop was safe harbor for Will’s very expensive “first day” Armani. His tie cost nearly as much as his first car. Both were immaculate now, but so was the rest stop. Weird. Evacuation took less than a minute. He felt omnipotent now. Like he would kill it on his first day. He washed, zipped, and returned to his moribund Focus to find his iphone stolen right off his dashboard. In his panic to piss, he must have forgotten to lock the door. His anxiety skyrocketed as he looked around desperately for the culprit but saw no one obvious. He still arrived on time for a junior associate, which was a minimum of two hours before management.
The first day training placed him in a group of nine other fresh, eager employees, each with a skyscraper of papers to read and John Hancock before leaving. Nearly everyone was white except for an Indian woman and a Asian gentleman who had brought a briefcase for some reason. A middle-aged, overdressed woman with big red hair barely covering her doctored Ds began speaking without addressing anyone personally. “Todays about the basics. Read and sign every document before returning them all to me. If you need one, we can make a firm attorney available. But it is frowned upon.” She attempted to make eye contact with everyone in the group simultaneously and failed. She snapped her stiff, stereotypically stiff German heels together unconsciously and returned to her desk. Based on the McDonald Weatherbee Force help wanted advertising, they were looking for winners. For people who could out-think the challenge immediately in front of them and solve a myriad of related problems using creative concepts no one else could fathom yet. For vigorous time benders who worked one hundred hours per week, they weren’t afraid to rat on their co-workers in the hopes of gleaning loyalty their boss’s loyalty and maybe even a raise. As if. For snakes in the grass with trustworthy, almost central casting perfect looks, evangelical faces who had no more problem stabbing a friendly co-worker in the back than they did performing the sacraments. Loyalty. That was paramount. Almost as important as knowing when to auction your fealty for one boss for more power from a more important boss with wider influence.
Everyone worked quietly and diligently until a man with a severe haircut and blue-dye job that probably cost more than Will’s car, slapped a stack of papers on the table. Presumably complete. “Half-way done, baby! Eat my dust, losers,” He winked and took to signing the rest of his papers. He obviously wasn’t reading them.
“You are permitted to consult with a company attorney,” reminded a helpful, blonde-haired, assistant-bot with glacial eyes. “If you require some assistance reading.”
Will burst out laughing even as the rest of the students stared at him blankly, as if nothing had happened to cause his obnoxious outburst.
That night and every night for the rest of his first week, Will saw zero daylight. Darkness reigned when he drove downtown in the morning and when he dragged his way to the studio apartment that he’d rented since becoming a senior at Michigan. On the last day of the week, he invited his fellow junior consultants for drinks but was unequivocally rebuffed. Clearly this was a competitive environment that took no prisoners. They looked at him like they were lionesses and he was an aged water buffalo with a limp.
Heading home at one am on his first day at the office, Will’s bladder forced him to pull over at the same rest stop where his phone was stolen. Sure to lock his car, he loped into the building and relieved himself of espresso and Red Bull. This time he found two thirty-something women wearing tight shorts and revealing tops leaning against a hooptie ride now parked beside his Focus. They appeared hungry but acted horny, asking “You want to party?”
“I’m Michaela,” The brunette announced.
“Candy,” The bleach blonde, more experienced looking of the two, contributed. “C’mon. Let’s take a walk.”
Before he could extricate himself from their arms, Will found himself touring the rest stop between two middle-aged MILFs. “I think you got the wrong idea,” he stammered nervously.
They walked past a group of men who scowled at Will, sizing up future competition for food and females. Will turned around, but Candy and Michaela blocked his way. “You want an eye-opener, honey?” She brandished a tackle box filled with pills and powders. Will spotted syringes and decided that he was out of his depth and should returned to his car. They continued to implore him, “Come on, mister. We’ll let you have us both for food money. Like fifty bucks?” Their desperation was palpable. “For both of us?”
After a month sitting between three monitors at McDonald Weatherbee Force wearing headphones and working multiple mobiles just to keep up with his coworkers, Will felt like he’d mastered the basics. They started him with financial modeling using fake money. But there was no pressure playing without consequences and he was bored within hours. He was quickly promoted to lead the faux financial team. Will stayed a week ahead of his team to know how to instruct them, adding ten hours to his relentless work week.
Two months in, he was unceremoniously yanked from the Freshman team and given lead of a new team with twice as many people.
The project was for a real client. They weren’t playing with fugazi money. Any error could cost the company millions. Success meant a complete upgrade in lifestyle for himself, his parents, sister, maybe he’d even cover his student loans. Only failure would keep him driving his nearly defunct Focus much longer. Failure would cost everything. He’d probably need to move to a new country and learn a trade, keep his head down for a couple decades. But he didn’t think it would come to that. He reserved Wednesday night for pizza and beer; and ponied up the cash himself keep them smiling. He received scowls instead, as if he was trying to sabotage them. Like the time it took to chew pizza and swallow beer was taking money directly out of their crypto wallets. Will took a couple beers back to his office and slammed the door, confused about their attitude.
That night, the piss pit stop was swarming with cops. He spotted truckers yanked from their cabs and cuffed. The other side looked abandoned. Candy sauntered up to him from out of nowhere. “What happened?” He inquired.
“OD. It’s a regular thing here.” An ambulance siren whooped, and a cop car peeled rubber onto the highway.
“Are they alive?” His looked on, slack jawed until his urge to piss took over.
“Yeah. You remember little Michaela you met your first time here? That was her that OD’s. Fifteen’s too young to use needles. And I should know. But she didn’t listen to me. Not after that first time.”
A violent skirmish kicked off between the truckers and the police. Candy sparked a joint and watched impassively, trading hits with Will, until the cops had their men rounded up. Knowing what might happen next, the homeless on our side of the rest stop booked for the woods, for some unseen shelter. But there was no hiding from I.C.E.
Batons brandished, they howled for people to move on. Terrorized and barefoot, children scattered. Adults bolted, oblivious. They were soon zip tied to the nearest immovable object to await the paddy wagon. In the end, it had taken four squad cars of cops and their cache of non-lethal weaponry to subdue the homeless camp. The prisoners would be spending some time with a roof over their heads now.
Ninety days later: unproductive junior associates were eliminated from McDonald Weatherbee Force. Including Will. Honestly relieved to wake when it was light outside and eat three meals a day, he couldn’t have felt better about losing the job. There would always be more jobs. He wasn’t geeked about finding a new one. His first few days off, Will’s symptoms became obvious: he avoided mail with financial statements. He had flashbacks of his team of snakes plotting against him. His dreams were unspeakable. Television replaced sleep. Brand TV kept him awake and shopping.
Time, as always, pressed on whether Will wanted it to or not and it became crystal that McDonald Weatherbee Force had done a number on him. One morning, he woke to a loud hammering. He pulled on a pair of boxers and was about to open the door when an ax penetrated and practically shattered the door was off its hinges.
Standing in the hallway were my landlord, six burly fellows who could have been linebackers in their pre-beer and burger days, and two armed “officers of the court” who informed me that my time in the swanky studio apartment was up. The neighbors watched in the hallway, one holding back her son as if he were some sort of pedophile being taken to jail. When Will raised his hand to wipe a tear from his eye, one of the burly fellows slapped his arm away so hard it hit the frame and broke his wrist. Needless to say, Will howled like a child denied long promised ice cream.
While the cops drove Will to the emergency room, the burly men proceeded to throw my things on the grass between the sidewalk and the street. People walking by, casually looking over my things as if I was having a garage sale. Some actually picked up a book or a knick knack, without looking at me, and pocketed it on their way home.
Without a dime to his name, his Focus hardly functioning and now - without a job, home, or possessions - he walked across the street coffee. That would make thinking a million times easier. Forced to hoof it in the summer heat, he legged it back to the studio only to discover that the majority of his possessions were now his neighbors’ possessions. The furniture was picked over, leaving only cheap Wal-Mart electronics. Everything in the fridge was melting on the sidewalk beside a cooler. Will filled the cooler with edible food. Then he Tetrised the remainder of his possessions into his weepy Focus and drove to the rest stop off I-94. When he backed into an empty spot, he got out and was greeted by Michaela and Candy. After explaining his downfall to them in so many words, the girls each took one of his arms and squeezed it. “Living here ain’t so bad, Will. Plus, we like you and won’t let you starve or get your head stoved in. Welcome to Che I-94.” For once, we all giggled together.
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