I.D.'s

In the fall everyone from the DMV is beset with definite ideas. Like Colombina who hides chicken feet between stacks of paper around her desk. And Rick the cashier who refuses to give out one dollar bills. Jones, balding and losing his lower lip, was fired for wearing a Hawaiian shirt every day and lying about it.

“This isn’t a Hawaiian shirt,” he would say.

Jones worked next to Todd for three years and usually confided in him that the office was hot. When they moved Todd away from Jones, Jones would walk up to Todd’s desk sweating and say, “Pal, it’s hot in here.”

The boss, Bob, had that skin disease that makes people white and black and splotchy at the same time. During the fall he looked yellow. Jones mimicked him and everyone else. Eventually Bob brought him into his office. “Jones, I think you’re dangerous,” Bob said. Jones leaned back in his seat and was quiet a long time. He put an open palm on the desk and made a little turkey out of sweat.

      “Bob, I honestly think you’re dangerous,” he replied

Bob looked through the blinds. “You’re fired.”

“It’s Friday.”

      “Sorry pal.” It was Tuesday.

The next day Jones showed up in a grey dress and sunglasses and sat in the waiting area until the police came. He tried whispering something to Todd on the way out, but he was being handcuffed and Todd couldn’t hear him. As Jones' wigged-head was being lowered into the police cruiser, a gust of wind blew the front door open. Todd’s bowl-cut flew to the ceiling and a bird landed on the entryway. Todd screamed, "Fall has a welcome sensation!" Bob watched the winged little wretch and wished it would join the long line of impatient customers, but the door was slowly being pulled shut by the opposite end of the same force that blew it open and the bird was careening away on a 45-degree angle. Bob felt like a dinosaur for watching birds in such a way, and Todd lowered his head darkly for a moment, feeling like he'd just lost something preciously vital, but he couldn't figure out what it was. Then the moment snapped shut. Columbina reshuffled some papers over her chicken's feet. It was winter again.

In the spring Todd was replaced by Wayne. Wayne started an office pool; he pooled all the money.  He was always thinking up ideas for the pool. He gambled a lot and started talking about gambling all the time—even on first dates. “You can even smoke inside the Indian casinos,” he would say.

He looked at me once and noticed my glasses had changed. His face fogged over and his eyes dribbled out the window. “I’m hungry,” he said. 

In the summer Deborah walked in on Wayne bathing in the women’s bathroom. He suggested that Grand Cahokia was better than Pottawatomie and put a handful of soap in his pubic hair. Bob didn't fire him, but by September he was invisible; in December pencils on his desk sat like trees in snow.