Excerpt: Untitled

This is a story about a penis. More specifically, it’s a story about my penis and how it ruined my life. It sounds melodramatic, I know, but how many people do you know who can honestly say that their dick killed someone? To take a few steps back, no, I didn’t physically kill someone using my penis as a weapon – I sometimes tell women that I have an obscenely large dick to try and get them into bed, but frankly, my average-sized penis couldn’t do too much damage if I tried. In fact, I think it’d hurt me a hell of a lot more than I could hurt another person.

But no, I’m not talking about my penis physically murdering someone (as much as I’d like to say that I had the girth to be capable of it) but I still believe, to this day, that my penis indirectly led to Garth Bowman’s death. Now, I know I’m jumping a few steps ahead of myself, but I promise I’ll tell you about Garth in a bit.

I guess the best place to start would be September seventeenth of last year. Now, historically, September seventeenth wasn’t an incredibly important date. Frances Scott Key finished writing his now-infamous poem, The Star-Spangled Banner, the United States Constitution was signed in Philadelphia, and American writer William Carlos Williams was born, but that’s about it. Oh, and it’s also US Constitution Day. But besides that, not the most memorable day in history. September seventeenth will always live in my mind, however, as the day my life was ruined.

On the seventeenth of September one year ago today, I woke up, showered and dressed, tied my shoes, grabbed my briefcase, kissed my wife and kids goodbye, grabbed a coffee, spilled that coffee on my white shirt, hopped on a bus and went to work. So far so good. I got to work, bit of brown-nosing in the elevator on my way up (oh, come on, we all do it), looked down the receptionist’s shirt and had a seat at my desk. I set up my computer for work and promptly opened Solitaire.

I know I’m not painting a picture of a grade-a employee here, but really, this was a normal day for me and the rest of corporate America. By now you’ve gotten the idea that my life wasn’t really that extraordinary. In fact, it was incredibly ordinary if anything. I was the type of guy that blended perfectly into the crowd, so you can imagine my surprise when I was called upon to meet with Garth Bowman last year on the seventeenth.

A bit about Garth Bowman: he’s the kind of guy who you don’t want to have much to do with. If he doesn’t like you, he can make your life hell. He can assign you to low-grade accounts that almost never come with high commissions or opportunity for a bonus. He’ll turn a deaf ear to any good or creative ideas you may have, then grant credit for them to someone he likes better, but when you have a bad idea, he’s acutely aware of it. If he likes you, he’s even worse. He’s an over-enthused prick with too much money and not enough to do with it. He’s a spendthrift who likes to flaunt, so he puts on a big grin and lures you into his mansion so he can show you exactly how much more than you he makes annually and most of all, he’s fake.

Bowman’s the kind of guy that even looks fake. His slicked back hair is such that nobody is quite sure whether it’s real or so infused with hair grease that it’s actually become synthetic. He dresses in tacky suits that say he’s higher up than he really is, and his oily skin shines like plastic. He’s fake from his spray-on tan down to his surgically enhanced nose (a necessity due to a deviated septum, he’ll assure you).
As a mid-level employee of a Manhattan law firm, I didn’t really have much to do with Bowman, and that’s quite how I preferred it. When Bowman’s secretary asked me to come to his office, then I was confused, but mostly curious. I scheduled a meeting with him “promptly” as the e-mail had instructed me to do and arranged to meet with him that day during lunch. When noon rolled around, I made my way to the executive offices which were separated from us normal folk by glass double doors. I entered the suite and was greeted by Bowman's secretary.

“Mister...Rustin?” she asked as she glanced towards her computer screen. I nodded in acknowledgement.

Bowman’s secretary had dyed blonde hair worn straight down – almost unnaturally straight. Come to think of it, it probably wasn’t natural, but hey, I’m a guy, what do I know, right? The finer details of her hair didn’t matter, though, when you looked at her tits. I’m really not this chauvinist pig you probably think I am at this point. I’m not like that, really, but this chick was wearing this paper thin white blouse and the air conditioning in the suite was going so that as she managed Bowman’s calendar, it was difficult to help but notice her perfect, perky 34Cs.

Mr. Bowman will be ready for you in just a moment. You can have a seat while you wait. I sat down in the black leather and mahogany double-armed chair and picked up a copy of The Wall Street Journal to read while I waited. I don’t usually read the journal like most law stiffs. Actually, I don’t do most of the things that the other law stiffs do. I’m one of those guys that’s in it for the six-figure salary a year out of school. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate my job at all. I kind of like it, actually, I’m just kind of lazy.

Waiting for Bowman, I felt like I did back in high school waiting in the principal’s office. I wouldn’t call it nervous, but as I sat there running through my mind all the possibilities, I honestly couldn’t imagine a reason why he would want to see me. I guess it was this sort of curious anxiety. I knew I wasn’t visibly shaking but I felt like my arms and legs were out of control, melting, almost. A light wave of nausea hit me, and I wasn’t sure why. There was nothing particularly wrong that I’d done, was there?