Pete Direpall ducked back into the bank.
Usually when somebody ducks like that they are hiding from a creditor or an X or a naughty girlfriend. But this was not the case for Pete Direpall. After thirty years of usury, he was rich beyond belief. He could use thousand dollar bills for toilet paper and never run out. Whomever he owed money would not be so brazen as to confront him on the street about it. He also did not have an X, married this thirty-four years to Zone-out Zoie. He did have a naughty girlfriend, maybe two or three—nobody was really keeping count. But they were satisfied naughty girlfriends who knew their place.
No. What Pete Dirpall was ducking from was the woman sitting on the sidewalk in front of the bank. She leaned against the wall just outside his bank entrance. She sat, legs folded in the lotus position, wrists relaxed on her knees, finger and thumb on each hand just touching in cradle of her red paisley skirt. She was not saying ‘om’; but just leaning against the wall of his bank, eyes closed, face lifted toward the sun.
She had once been a prospect for naughty girlfriend. But things had not gotten that far along when Pete had fired her. She was certifiable, and certifiable was neither girlfriend nor bank employee material. That was thirty years ago and time had not made her any less certifiable. Or any closer to naughty girlfriendship either. Although the face that relaxed in the sunshine still held a fine-boned beauty, there were squint wrinkles, and a sagging under the jaws. Her youthful plump had slumped, her slim fanny had morphed into hams that rocked her paisley skirt when she walked.
He had fired her for violence in the work place. Most of the people in the bank were witness, including employees, a trustee, and a few clients. It was humiliating and every time he saw her in front of his bank, he remembered it all: her standing in the doorway of his office; him about to say, “come on in Maria, close the door. Sit down.”
She stood in the door way, fidgeting her fingers. “Mr. Dirpall,” she blurted. “Do you think you have twenty dollars to help Verine.” Verine was, at the time, about what Maria had turned into; certifiable and tramp on the street. “She needs meds and doesn’t have enough.”
Pete, the newly crowned CEO of the Last Lost Valley Bank, figured to make the best of the situation and smiled.
Come in, come in, Maria, we can talk it over.”
“She’s outside. I can help a little; but. . . .”
“Come on in, come in. Close the door. I’m sure we can make some accommodations. Sit down.”
Maria came into the office; but left the door open. She sat on the edge of the client chair in Pete’s new office, fingers fidgeting in her lap.
Pete stood, strode to the door, closed it, then pulled another chair up beside Maria. He put his arm over her shoulder. She stiffened. He expected that.
“She needs forty-three, but I have some.” Her voice was trembling; her shoulders shook under his hand; and Pete felt his cock responding to the fear. He stroked across the fine hair of her neck, lifting her hair.
“I figure I could find twenty, maybe more, if I had a reason,” Pete purred. He could almost smell the fear seeping off of her.
Maria stood suddenly, stumbling, overturning her chair. Pete tightened his hand on her arm, pulling her toward him, lifting his hand toward her firm young breast.
That is when she slugged him. It wasn’t a push. It wasn’t a slap across the face. It was a fist-on-the schnoz slug. With every ounce of her 122 pounds sunk into it.
Through the blood spewing past his lips, Pete yelled loud enough that, even through the closed door, what he squealed was heard in the lobby. What he yelled was, “you’re fired you miserable slut.”
Maria opened the door before she responded. “You’re wrong you cheap, halfcock pervert. I quit.” She slammed the heavy door so hard it seemed to suck the air from the room.
Time had not cooled his memory of the humiliation of the shock of her fist in his face and the even more shocking foulness of her humiliation of him in front of his employees. He had seen to it that she was pretty much unhireable, except for making beds and cleaning toilets. All she had needed to do was a simple, easy thing for a woman to do. Instead she had humiliated him. He had not spoken to her in thirty years. But about once every month or two she came and sat in front of the bank. Fortunately there were back doors to duck out through.
A double duty again. Two days of Ragtag community daily prompts in one sketch. “Duck” and “Time”. Enjoy
Home of Have, Poems by Lee Robison 