Dead Low Winter. T.K. O'Neill

me a look, said, “Big talk.”

      “Fuck you, too,” I said.

      Mary stood with her hip cocked to the side. “We have to get the girls, don’t forget, Sam,” she said. Looking up at me with those fascinating, heavy-lidded peepers when she said it.

      “How could I forget those two,” Sam said, as he took Mary’s arm and sashayed toward the door. “See ya, Waverly,” he said. “Be there or be square.”

      “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” I shouted after them. “Don’t leave without me.”

      The clock said 10:45.

      “You’ll have to make up your minds, guys,” I said to the water buffaloes as they relaxed and approached the desk “We’re closing in five minutes.”

      “I thought it said midnight on the front door,” said the guy with an oval head made me think of an egg. Had a soft-boiled look about him.

      “Yeah, we just got here,” whined the other one, his skin the color of bone. “I’ve got a whole pocket of quarters here for the movies.” He lifted up the side pocket of his gray overcoat and jangled it at me. He had long dirty fingernails.

      “Boss has to come in and do inventory tonight, guys. Sorry.”

      “Well, all right then,” said the guy with the fingernails, looking around. “I’m gonna buy a magazine. Wait a minute, would you.”

      He picked out a spectacular photo collection of extra-large breasted women entitled Big Mamas. I rang up No Sale and set the ten-spot on the counter in front of the register. Fuck Ferris Alexander. A man needs a few bucks in his pocket when he’s going out with a pretty lady or two.

      After the dudes left, I locked the door behind them, turned the CLOSED sign around on the door and pulled the curtain down on the front window. Next step was to take a mop and a bucket of suds and swab down the floors of the movie booths and the surrounding area. If done correctly the job took thirty minutes.

      I grabbed the Pine-Sol bottle from the cleaning closet and shook several drops on the inside of each cubicle and a steady stream on the floor and then swished it all around with the mop, at high speed. The job was completed in ten minutes. I cashed out the register and put the money in the metal box and slid it underneath the gay magazines like I was supposed to. I left and locked the door behind me.

      Walking down the busy sidewalk towards my car I felt like the eighth dwarf, name of Sleazy. Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off of work I go. I’ve filled the world with lots of smut, Hi-ho, hi-ho.

      Jesus.