72 Hours

My buddy Wally Stanovich fires frozen chickens at airplane windshields for a living.

That wasn’t his career goal in life. We served together in the Navy, and not once did he tell me of a lifelong ambition to send subzero poultry crashing through aviation glass on a daily basis. No, he got kicked out of the Navy after he popped positive on a drug test for marijuana. He claims that it must have been the brownies that his girlfriend made, but I’m pretty sure that’s bullshit.

Anyway, he walks into this company called Skyward Technologies because he heard they needed a filing clerk. They hired him, and he did that for three days. On his lunch break on the third day, he was wandering through the testing floor, and overheard a group of engineers trying to figure out the best way to test airplane windshield’s ability to resist a goose impact.

Wally steps up, and tells them about this story he heard about the Japanese catapulting live chickens at Zero windshields to test them before battle in World War 2. Total bullshit, and they knew that, but it got them thinking. One thing led to another, and next thing you know? Clock in, pull the lever, splat, good, time for lunch, pull the lever, crash, bad, clock out, home in time for Simpsons reruns.

The entire point is, you never know what’s going to happen. I let myself forget that a lot can change in three days. In seventy-two hours, Wally went from an unemployed pothead to a guy with arguably the most amazing job on the planet. So I guess it’s not too surprising, at least in retrospect, how much happened in our seventy-two hours.

It certainly wasn’t what I had planned on happening. But it happened, and I’m trying to make it work.

Monday

Chapter 1

My face itched. I’d actually let my beard start to grow in for the first time in over six years, and it itched like crazy. Staring in the mirror, I also reflected on the fact that it really wasn’t coming in the way that it was supposed to. By the end of the third day, I should have had a manly ghost of a beard, like that tough cartoon soldier with the kung fu grip. After trimming carefully, it should provide a strong accent to my tough jaw line, guaranteeing my status as a tough no nonsense veteran who intimidates men, and makes women swoon in the presence of such overwhelming testosterone. My reflection stubbornly refused to adopt anything close to the proper image. As of this particular moment, I looked like a homeless man with a bad case of mange. But given time, I was confident that I would look like an extra from a bad seventies porno.

But it wasn’t so much the look I was pursuing, it was evidence that I, Michael Whiting, had, after six years, four months, two days, and three hours (give or take) of donating the vast majority of my life to the demands of the United States Navy, finally wriggled my way to a discharge. I was a civilian. I could find a job and quit it for any reason. I could wear whatever the hell I wanted, be it a suit or a fishnet tank top. I could grow a beard, and no one could demand that I shave. I spun around from the mirror, reveling in my new freedom, and strode confidently into the kitchen to present the new, fuzzy face of my liberation to Albert. Albert, my perennially overjoyed basset hound, stared at me, whined, and went to hide under the table.

Despite this less than enthusiastic response from the only creature I answered to these days, I was excited. I had completed the Transition Assistance Program, the week long seminar intended to transform me into a productive member of civilian society. After that, I completed the checkout process, which essentially entails presenting yourself to anyone who has anything to do with your military career and listening to their own comedic styling as they riff about how pleased they are to not have to deal with the apparently massive heaps of bullshit that accompanied every step you took in Navy blue.

Finally, I presented myself to Personnel and braced for the inevitable bribery and pleading as they desperately pawed through their arsenal of fear and cajoling to preserve such an invaluable government resource. This consisted of a bored yeoman slamming a stamp down on a mountain of forms and droning, Sign here, drop your ID off with security, don’t let the door hit your fat ass on the way out. Somehow I managed to resist their wiles, and found myself a free man.

I couldn’t really blame anyone who had served with me for the remarkable level of ambivalence regarding my departure. In the course of my naval career, I had graduated the distinguished Naval Nuclear Pipeline two spots away from the dead center of my graduating class. I completed five strategic deterrent patrols on a ballistic missile submarine, and did so with so little distinction that one of the petty officers in my division regularly ran a pool as to how often our captain would forget my name.

My one claim to fame was dropping a can of nonstick spray into a deep fryer during my third patrol. The resulting explosion and fire did attract attention, but even that was forgotten rather quickly. When I did step away from this career path, I did so with complete confidence that the United States military, the USS Pennsylvania, and indeed anyone who served with me would continue with no issues whatsoever. Like a wrench that snapped during use, I was discarded without a thought, and replaced with the next available set of blue coveralls that wandered on board.

But now that was past, and I found myself wondering what I would do next. Throwing some eggs in a skillet and switching on the burner, I opened my laptop and logged online to check my email. A week before, I had placed the resume I had assembled onto all of the major job hunting websites and was certain that my inbox would be bloated with dozens of employers from across the country desperate for the volumes of experience and training that I took away from the Navy. The reality was the usual deluge of spam promising bigger erections, freakier girls, and even more desperate deposed monarchs of third world countries. Although all worthy of my attention, none of these promised to provide anything close to a steady paycheck.

The odd thing was that I found myself remarkably apathetic about the lack of job prospects. Money was a bit of an issue, but the majority of my thirty thousand dollar enlistment bonus was still sitting fat and happy in my savings, and would probably hold me for a bit. But even more than that, I didn’t want to keep doing the same thing. Engineering was boring, repetitive, and not at all what I wanted to be doing for decades until incontinence and the promise of sponge baths from nubile nursing home attendants lured me into retirement.

I wanted something different, something that was actually interesting. I knew I was moderately intelligent. I knew I could work hard. When I spoke of this with Lopez, my closest friend from the Navy who had left a year before I had, he expressed absolute confidence that I would have no problem finding a job slinging chili, shoveling horse shit, or even, if I was willing to climb that corporate ladder, working the day shift at that kiosk in every mall that has those weird wire spiders that fat middle age women spend way too much time scratching their heads with.

Lopez is kind of an asshole.

Albert padded into the room, attracted by the smell of overcooked eggs. I scooped his portion out of the pan and dumped it into his bowl. He attacked it with the same rapturous joy of a heroin addict going after his latest fix. I sat at the cheap card table that served as my dining room set and shoveled my food in, pondering how I was going to fill the hours of the day. In my now six-month-long period in an unemployed state, I had been searching for something to pass the time until I figured out what to do with my life.

Two months after I got out, I realized my unrealized passion for painting was finally going to be unleashed upon the world. Five days of frenzied and exhausting artistic ejaculation later, Lopez came over to watch television, and while I was grabbing beers from the kitchen, yelled out to me, Hey Mike, I think Albert shit on your canvas. That was the end of my painting career. I had similar experiences with the kayaking guide business that I wanted to start, the abortive attempt at video game programming that resulted in one trashed computer and a bruised tailbone (don’t ask), and a week of going door to door asking if I could spray paint home addresses onto curbs. By the way, if you’re curious what the answer to that last question is, it ranges from, What are you, some kind of lazy pedophile who can’t hold a job? to Get off my lawn before I turn on the sprinklers, you hobo.

I felt a wet drooling dog chin slap down on my leg. Albert gazed up at me, trying his best to telepathically communicate to me that I didn’t really want my eggs, and indeed that I needed to cook up the rest of the dozen so I could not want to eat those too. Setting my plate on the floor, I moved over to the phone and dialed Lopez’s number. He picked up on the fourth ring.

Hey, my asshole of a garbage man flashed gang signs at me this morning. I think it’s a precursor to a damn drive by.

Okay, so I feel now that I should explain Lopez. Dave Lopez is a five-foot-tall former reactor chemist. He acts like a complete idiot sometimes, and a perverted, offensive idiot the rest of the time. The first time I saw him, he was protesting the regulation requiring us to wear radiation dosimeters, small belt clips that measure radiation. He chose to protest this by spending four days on board wearing nothing but a belt, his dosimeter and a pirate hat fashioned from duct tape.

He went to captain’s mast (navy version of misdemeanor court) three times, the first time for conduct unbecoming a noncommissioned officer (tying ropes to the arms and legs of three new sailors and forcing them to act as puppets as he acted out a pornographic version of Gone With the Wind). The second time was for unauthorized absence (he left while he was on watch to go to a KISS concert and hold up a sign reading, Gene Simmons raped my great grandmother and didn’t even call her).

The third time was also for conduct unbecoming, in addition to theft and reckless endangerment. This incident also marked the end of his eight year career in the navy. While on a port call in Pearl Harbor, he drank an entire bottle of Jose Cuervo, stole a forklift loaded with helium tanks, and crashed it through the front of the base commander’s greenhouse. When they came to arrest him, he was huddled in a corner behind a pile of wrecked calla lilies sucking on a helium tank and squealing, You’ll never fucking take me alive! while brandishing a bamboo stalk like a spear. After that, it was decided that the military wasn’t the best place for him.

All this serves to mask the most disturbing fact about Lopez. He’s a freaking genius. The only person to achieve a perfect score on the navy’s nuclear comprehensive exam, Lopez has a photographic memory and an IQ higher than most physics professors. The navy wanted to recruit him when he graduated high school, but he was only fifteen. If he had as much self-control as he had intelligence, he would have been an officer by the time he was twenty. As it was, he spent the majority of his time posting conspiracy theories on various web forums. It’s not that he believed any of them. He just enjoyed adding fuel to the arguments.

At his most recent outburst, I just sighed. I’m sure your garbage man is not about to open fire on his customers.

I heard him snort. Whatever. When it happens and you’re tearfully confessing your undying love for me over my open grave, you’ll feel guilty as shit. He paused, and added, See, I’m saying that you’re gay.

Yeah, I got that. Asshole.

Anyway, I’m glad you called. I found a job for us.

It was my turn to snort. Lopez’s attempts to become gainfully employed never seemed to last past the interview. It might have been the fact that the only suit that he was willing to wear was a pale yellow leisure suit he found in a dumpster in Bangkok while hiding from the local police. Or, it may have been the fact that he considered a job interview an opportunity to showcase his ability to sing Baby Got Back in his native Spanish. For whatever reason, it never seemed to happen.

Okay, I’ll bite… what’s the job.

Not over the phone. He lowered his voice. We really need to discuss this over here.

Why? Is this something illegal? I really didn’t think that he would get us involved in anything against the law, but I figured it might be a good thing to be sure.

No, I just really need a energy drink and don’t feel like opening the door. That asshole sanitation department psycho might be waiting. He hung up, and I sighed. Well, I didn’t have shit to do today anyway. At least it might be entertaining. Dropping the phone onto the cradle, I threw on my jacket, grabbed a Red Bull out of my fridge, poured enough food into Albert’s bowl to distract him from me leaving, and darted out the door.

Chapter 2

I lived in a relatively low end apartment building. After squeezing my admittedly expansive physique into a cot on a submarine for years, pretty much anything was a step up. As I walked towards the exit, the door next to mine cracked open, and I saw someone peer out towards me.

Good morning, Mrs. Edleman. How have you been? I tried to be polite to the people who shared my building, even if I couldn’t tell you most of their names.

The door opened further. Mrs. Edleman slithered into the hall, clutching some knitting between her hands. I don’t think that she actually knit, but I think she thought it was expected of any woman over the age of five hundred, a category in which she qualified. She never really spoke, but when she stepped into the hall she stretched out her hand and offered me a mint.

I popped it into my mouth and grinned. Thanks, cutie. See you tonight. She rewarded me with a shy smile and slid back into her apartment, waving goodbye.

See, Lopez has the brains, but I have my own gift. Everyone likes me. I may be remarkably forgettable after the fact, but when I’m talking to someone I always seem to know what to say to make someone smile and feel like it’s all about them. I’m the guy who can flirt with your girlfriend in front of you while you laugh. Unfortunately, it’s a pretty useless gift. It never helped me get a job or pick up women. But you need me to make an agoraphobic octogenarian smile, I’m your man.

Out in the parking lot, I slid behind the wheel of my beat up Nissan Stanza, cranked over the engine, and set off for the four block trip to Lopez’s place. We live in Nashville. Lopez moved here for a potential job. I moved here because my family lives nearby and I thought it was as good a place as any. In both of our cases, we really just have kind of floated here without finding any kind of direction or purpose.

The drive wasn’t far, but Nashville has the kind of traffic infrastructure that I’m fairly certain was designed either by a sadist or a mental patient. Four major interstates converge upon the city, bringing thousands of big rig trucks driven by sociopathic men fueled by a near-lethal combination of No-Doze, speed, and Glenn Beck radio. As a result, Nashville’s main roads turn into a parking lot early in the morning, and show little to no interest in changing until lunchtime.

The mist of rain drizzling down from the slate gray sky was that perfect level where turning on my windshield wipers resulted in a sound that made my molars try to claw their way out of my head, but leaving them off left my windshield about three degrees shy of greasily opaque. I eyed the sky nervously. Tennessee has oddly bipolar weather patterns. While there’s some vague approximation of seasons, the climate can shift remarkably quickly, sometimes with disastrous results. One year prior, a gloomy drizzle changed with terrifying speed, spawning a thunderstorm that spat fourteen tornadoes through various subdivisions, one of them containing my parent’s four bedroom colonial. While my parents were unharmed, their home was reduced to a pile of shattered wood and lawn ornaments. By the time they had emerged from the rubble, the sun was shining once more.

Despite the traffic and the weather, I found myself liking this city. There are a few towns across the world that seem to have a pulse, a rhythm that flows through the people and the buildings. Nashville is extremely eclectic, with neighborhoods ranging from slums to clusters of mansions that wouldn’t seem out of place in Beverly Hills, but the music and culture of the town permeate every inch of the city. I wasn’t sure it was where I wanted to remain, but it was a hell of an interesting place to hang my hat for now.

Taking advantage of a gap in the traffic, I broke away from the stagnant herd of exhaust-spewing vehicles and pulled into the side street leading to Lopez’s apartment. Lopez lived in a giant concrete brick of a building, the only character to the exterior granted by a large patch of moss on the wall facing the swimming pool. I pulled into a space next to a Geo Metro with $900 rims and a two foot tall lime green spoiler, slammed my car door shut and began the trudge up to the fifth floor.

I could hear the mechanical creaks and slams of a garbage truck tossing back another bin like a shot of whiskey down the gullet of a particularly cantankerous drunk, and paused in order to check out the guy driving the truck. Didn’t really seem like the drive-by shooting type, but who knew. I refrained from throwing up a gang sign, just in case.

By the time I reached the fourth floor, I heard Lopez’s door open. Looking up, I could see his head poking out over the railing. Tell me you remembered the fucking Red Bull or I’m dropping this waffle iron on your skull. He brandished the aforementioned weapon over his head.

I shrugged sheepishly at the shocked expression on the face of a passing woman as her pudgy two year old scowled at me, and tossed the can up in response. Lopez reached out to snag it, and vanished back behind the railing, calling out, Door’s open.

Walking into Lopez’s apartment was always surreal. It was always immaculately neat, to an almost obsessive level. Every single thing was in its very specific place, from the remote control to the furniture itself. Everything gleamed, not a speck of dust to be found anywhere. This was first made unusual by the fact that I have never seen Lopez clean anything up, ever. I came over to his place to get drunk and play video games, and we trashed his living room during a particularly contentious game of Pong. Halfway through our last game, I passed out on the floor.

When I woke up the following day, the room was back to its usual standard of cleanliness. I sat up and stared around the room in hung over disbelief, then realized that someone ironed the t-shirt that I was wearing. Creeps me the hell out just to think of it. When I asked Lopez, he just shook his head and muttered something about sushi-loving Presbyterian leprechauns. I don’t fall asleep there anymore.

The other bizarre thing about his place is the fact that nothing matches. It looks as if an Ikea store got hammered on bad tequila, stumbled into the center of his place, vomited, shit itself, and then died. The leopard bean bag chair is precisely fifteen inches from the mahogany captain’s chair, which is set exactly ninety degrees to the pink pleather couch. The refrigerator has a stainless steel freezer door, but a white fridge door. The stove is avocado green, while the dishwasher next to it has an air brushed copy of a Pantera tour poster on it. The floor is bamboo, but kind of stops halfway through the living room and is switched out by sky blue shag carpet. I haven’t been into his bedroom (not sure I really want to see where he sleeps), but I know that there is something large and neon from the otherworldly glow that emanates from beneath his door. Finally, standing in the corner of the dining room is an excellent example of a stuffed duck-billed platypus with a slab of Caberra marble attached to the top to serve as an end table. I don’t know where he gets this stuff, but I get a headache anytime I try to take it all in at once.

Sprawled out on the sofa, Lopez was crushing the can