It smells of cheap body spray and cigarettes from the yellow-fingered drifter that looks like he was peeled off the blistering asphalt of I-95. Next to him is a fawn of a woman who just finished crying, eyes red and pathetic. I could hear her whisper-pleading with who must have been a fine piece of work on the other end of the line to watch their son while she got her shit sorted. Poor soon-to-be bastard would need all the luck he could get. I sat between them, evenly spaced in my peeling beige chair that hissed a weak fart when I sat my ass down in it. We had each staked our claim of the cramped office, a veritable Mexican stand-off.
Completing the diamond was a bullfrog-looking man behind a sheet of beat up plexiglass. He was our judge, jury, and executioner. The weigher of our souls. The day ruiner. The big shit. Hence the stab and burn marks all over his shield that kept him separated from the destitute pieces of shit on the other side like yours truly. Like a scientist studying some dangerous life form, his only access to our world was a thin slit at the bottom of the glass that slid open and closed, little wider than a sheet of paper.
A boxy speaker above croaked orders from our frog god, “781, please come up to the front counter.”
The drifter un-stuck himself from his chair, leaving it with a sheen of sour sweat. He took a couple bow-legged steps to the counter. It was his turn to parlay and plead his case. I knew how this was to play out. Ol’ nicotine Mc’Gee didn’t have an ID, hadn’t had one for a good six months. He was fucked without one. Sometimes he beat the glass. Other times he yelled and refused to leave until the police came and gave him a roof for the night. This time he took it in stride and walked back outside for a drag.
Twenty minutes melted by. Seems like they gave their employees mental breaks between each encounter with us. Always slow, as if they were trying to get us to leave through sheer boredom. No TV. No magazines. Just the AC that didn’t even have the decency to fall into a rhythm. It clacked and crunched, doing little to cool the room. Another wanderer joined our little congregation, taking the same seat the smoker had left behind.
Something to be said there about humanity. We like to space ourselves out, balance a room. This one was more put together, had even pulled out a wrinkled polo for the occasion for what little good it would do him. Bullfrog rarely looked up from his papers. A 9ft tall alien with blades for a face could walk up, and he’d run through his script like nothing was amiss.
“782, please come up to the front counter.”
My turn. I slid my ID and work authorization form under before he asked, but he still ran through the motions.
“Please provide a valid state ID and work authorization form.” He said as he was sliding the door open to take the paperwork, like some sad robot who couldn’t deviate from its programming.
He poured over the documents, flipping between them with fingernails chewed to the quick. Did he find this job so stressful? Or maybe it was just a bad habit. Eventually, he stamped it twice and slid the papers back to the other side, pulling his fingers back swiftly. Was he scared I might grab them and pull him through the other side like some cartoon sack of flesh? If I could I would, so I couldn’t blame him. I smiled, grabbed the papers.
Approved.
Looks like I had two more weeks at the same construction site doing day labor, then I’d get to come back here and see Mr. Bullfrog again.
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