Kevin Blogged - Part III

Larry’s Dead

Chapter I – Kevin Blogged
Chapter II – Tall Brad
Chapter III – A Mysterious Malaysian

Note, any similarities to persons living or dead are purely coincidental.

He was looking at me like he thought I was inscrutable. I hate that shit. I wanted to reach up there into the ether where his head perched on that six foot eight frame, slap him around a bit, maybe more, and scream, “It’s the Chinese you Americans think are inscrutable, bitch! I’m fucking Malaysian…MUH-LAY-SHUN!” But I figured the finer points of that discussion would be absolutely lost on him. So I put on my best “f-you buddy” look and filed away a mental note to report him to human services at the earliest possible moment.
I swear he stared at me for a good five minutes before he finally spoke, “Ming.” I waited for more, waited a few minutes, but that was it, just “Ming”. Six feet, eight inches of hesitating, indecisive wasted flesh. How had he ever become a rapid application developer? Where I come from they’d have turned him into a lottery prediction by now – heck, he’d make three or four predictions given his size, or maybe one really big prediction, like for that El Gordo thing in Spain.
“Brad.” Minimalist was best for someone this slow. Only give back what they were capable of giving – give ‘em time to digest. He looked ready to say something more, maybe a firm “hello”, when he stumbled. And it was then I noticed a leg sticking out of Larry’s cube. Considering the ratty state of the shoelaces and the cube, it seemed quite likely it was Larry’s. Brad quickly kicked it back inside the opening, sending small droplets of blood flying into the walkway.
“Larry’s got some cupcakes left over here,” he quickly offered me one of the cupcakes I’d actually brought myself for Larry’s birthday. “Care for one?”
“Sure,” I replied. He looked at me like he expected some comment. But what did I care if it was Larry’s leg. Bunch of losers killing each other and offering me their leftover food, which was really my food, to keep silent about the whole mess. There was a metaphor for British colonialism, Japanese occupation and resource exploitation in that cupcake, but fuck-all if I was going to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging it. Not to mention, if this was the only way I was moving up in this damn place, I wasn’t about to shed any tears for Larry over it. Compared to offing people, the Management Circle program was the proverbial short bus. If I didn’t have to do myself, so much the better.
“Thanks.” I quietly dropped the cupcake into the recycling bin – I’d never liked the janitor. “Big plans for the weekend?”
“Um, no.” He looked around shiftily, obviously uncomfortable that I was friendly, or more likely, watching for a manager or a nice piece of ass. He’d dated half the women at work and he was always on the prowl for the other half. They, in turn, were constantly looking to avoid him. It was probably sheer luck I’d met my wife before he had, and I couldn’t be sure about my sister in law, she had an impulsive streak. Come to think of it, he’d probably offed Larry over a woman. Which one was certainly an interesting question. Larry had always been talking about Miss Pisbo Beach 1978 or some such floozy. I wondered if she worked in content.
Scratch that though. Just fuck it. Fuck the cupcake. Fuck the janitor. Fuck ‘em all. I didn’t care. All I knew was I’d better be getting that promotion tomorrow. No forgetting that. “Whatever. Have fun.” I sat back down at my computer and punched up CDFFL on Firefox. A stark Apache/2.0 404 Not Found screen greeted me. Fuck. This had been the week I was going to win. Oh well, I guess that made it time to report Brad to HR instead.

Next: A Hairy Swede