INITIUM NOVUM: Part 1 (8 page)

CHAPTER 7:

Some days are just not right for some people.
Some days are just wrong, not dead wrong, but wrong and long. Some
days just begin and continue badly.

Upon waking, Milton Woodsmith had an aching
pain in his lower back. His large and robust torso, always so
difficult to move, needed to gain momentum from the swing of his
legs in order to rise from his bed. The pain in his back, from his
lumbar to his hamstrings, was too intense for him to have arisen in
any other fashion. To make matters worse, upon standing, he lost
balance and stumbled into his nightstand, shattering his wife’s
antique, porcelain, bed lamp. When his wife screams at him, he
attempts to guilt her by claiming he could have been
injured.

“You’re too fat for the injury to be anything
but superficial anyway,” she had shouted at him.

That is how Milton Woodsmith’s day began, with
pain, both physical and emotional. At that point, his day was still
pretty much average, as his large, unhealthy body usually has its
fair shares of aches and pains. Also, his wife, while being the
sweetest person most people know, is a bitch to him, at least about
his weight. In her defense, she’s tried the sweet approach. She was
understanding and encouraged him to exercise more, back when he
still had his weight management issues in control. As it stands
today, that control has long been dead, as is her patience with his
self-inflicted poor health. It’s a true wonder that, despite her
disgust with his lifestyle, Megan Woodsmith still loves her
morbidly obese husband. For this reason, she had confiscated his
car keys forcing Milton to walk to any destination he is required
to be present at, with the exception of possible emergencies. Of
course he agreed to the terms, Milton had no other choice but to
agree. Unfortunately and unbeknownst to Megan, he takes public
transportation and taxis when he’s out and about.

“That lamp had been in my family for
generations, you fat shit!” She added as Milton left the bedroom,
trying to avoid any further backlash from his wife.

It wasn’t long after he sat on the living room
couch that Megan’s fury spread to the rest of the apartment. “Look
at you, I bet you’re hungry too.” At this insult he rose – one hand
on his lower back for support – from the couch, which he had parked
at as a pit-stop between the bedroom and toilet. His groans and
grunts of pain as he lifts his big body off of the couch cushion
prompts yet another insult. “Let me guess, you hurt your back
lifting that heavy ass of yours, huh?” It was then he realized that
he would need to leave the apartment as quickly as possible just
not to suffer his wife’s bad mood. So he dressed himself and left,
but not before snagging a thermo mug full of coffee spiked with a
copious amount of French vanilla flavored creamer and three glazed
doughnuts in a large zip-lock bag. He taste tested his coffee
before closing the thermo mug. His wife, spotting this gluttonous
behavior, spewed her last insult for the morning at him.

“Thick and syrupy, just like you like it,
right? It’s coffee, not a milkshake, you fat ass!”

As he exited his home, he wondered whether or
not he brushed his teeth. Conversely, Megan wondered what kind of
slob leaves home without brushing his teeth first, as she knew
beyond any doubt that he had skipped the task.

Sadly, the day did not cease to abuse Milton
after he left home. Upon walking outside, he attempted to hail a
cab but his foot slipped off the curb and he had a near collision
with an oncoming bicyclist. It was possibly a messenger, but the
few milliseconds which had afforded him the glimpse was not enough
for him to make out any distinguishing features. The last thing he
saw was a flash of bright orange and black as the cyclist sped off,
his gear matching the paint on his ride. The sight startled him,
causing him to drop his thermo. He watched, almost in slow-motion,
as the cap cracked and the coffee spilled out onto the concrete.
Having fallen directly in front of the bike, the doughy stuffing
busted out of his doughnuts and the zip-lock bag as they were run
over by the front and back tires. An expression of heartbreaking
agony flashes across Milton’s face. The sentiment is accompanied by
the growl in his stomach. He stares at the remains. If only the bag
didn’t break, he thinks to himself.

Since, no available cabs would stop he was
forced to walk to the subway station where more trouble would
ensue, not to mention the chaffing between his thighs due to the
constant friction of his legs’ fat rubbing against each other. At
some point during his descent down the subway stairs, he missed a
step. The impact of the slight misstep caused the pain in his lower
back to flare up, sending cripplingly sharp pains down his legs.
Wincing as he moved, he suspected that he may have slipped a disc
in his vertebrate somehow. Walking fast so as to calm the flare
which intensified as his pace slowed, he experienced yet another
collision, this time with a commuter and his hot cup of
coffee.

“Ahh, that’s frickin’ hot,” Milton bellowed
before taking off, in hot pursuit after the man who had spilled the
hot beverage on him. In his fury, Milton forgot about the pain in
his back and ran, an activity he hadn’t done since he wrestled in
college some fifteen years ago. An otherwise usually docile man, if
Milton had caught the young man before he escaped into the train,
he would have uncharacteristically beaten the snot out of him, or
at least tried his best to. After all, the coffee was very hot and
the man had spilled it all over his chest and belly. The sudden
shock had pushed Milton over the edge.

As the train departed and Milton turned his
attention back to the platform, he witnessed an awful sight, an old
lady slipping and landing dreadfully hard on her back. Making it
worse was the metal walker which landed on the old lady’s chest.
Milton had no idea his incident and the lady’s accident were
related until he spotted the culprit’s matching breakfast items: an
empty Dunkin Donuts cup and a squished Dunkin Donuts sandwich. It
doesn’t take a genius to realize the two belonged to the man in the
suit who had escaped onto the train. He was the man responsible for
scalding Milton’s torso and for dropping a sandwich. The same
sandwich which an old lady had come to slip on only moments
later.

Waiting around the platform for another train
to pass, Milton watched as a blonde woman, of some form of
authority, kneeled by the old lady before rising to address the
crowd. After talking to a plain-clothed officer, the lady, who
happened to be an assistant to the district attorney, was brought
over to where Milton was standing.

“Sir,” she began, with an attitude. “I’ve been
led to believe that you might have witnessed something and are
holding information which might be of particular use to the
investigation at hand.”

Milton sensed an insincere quality to her tone
be gave her his testimony. He did so, however, while embellishing a
few things along the way. Bending the truth, he told her that he
chased the perpetrator after the old lady fell. However, the chase
was over by the time he witnessed the fall. He was no hero, as he
attempted to make himself seem. And while he doesn’t often lie
without reason, it had been a particularly bad day so far, much
worse than usual, and he could have used the boost to his
self-esteem. All he really wanted was a pat on his fat back, since
he hadn’t had one in so long.

“Let me get this straight, you chased the
young man, but he got away?” she asked him.

“Right,” he confirmed.

“And you gave chase,” she began, air-quoting
the word ‘chase,’ “because the lady fell?”

“Right,” he confirmed again.

The look on her face tells him that she
doesn’t believe his story. His instinct is right.

“Where were you standing, in regards to the
lady’s position, at the time of the incident?” She asked more
forcefully.

“I was near her,” he replied.

“And when she hit the ground?”

“I was near the train,” he said, instantly
realizing the flaw in the logic of the picture he had
painted.

“So then,” she began her sentence with a
slight pause. “Please explain how is it that you chased the man for
a deed not yet committed? If you were already near the train by the
time the lady fell.”

“Uh, ugh,” he said, stumbling over his
words.

“I’ll tell you how that was possible. You
chased the man before the fact. Now you stand before me like some
super-obese Good Samaritan. Come to think of it, from what I
understand, you’re partly to blame for the incident,” she snapped
at him.

“What, no. Wait lady, you got it all wrong,”
Milton pleaded. “I’m also a victim here.”

“A victim of cholesterol and diabetes, maybe,”
she quipped. “I’ll tell you what, get your fat, cheesy ass away
from me and I’ll think about not having cuffs slapped on you for
obstruction of justice, you fat, fucking piece of lying
shit.”

And with that Milton wobbled off, feeling
embarrassed and in pain again. Because the adrenaline rush from the
chase had long worn off. Luckily his train arrived, but atlas there
were no available seats. After a transfer, he was finally on his
way to his original destination.

His stop was Union Square and the train got
him there traveling slower than it normally did, but without
further incidents. Outside the Union Square station, a cab
screeched by. The driver of the vehicle shouted obscenities at the
passenger in the back.

“You! You will suck the cock!”

The driver screamed loudly enough that Milton
and other pedestrians heard him clearly. Milton tried to get a
clear view of the spectacle, but they were only visible for a blink
of an eye before foot traffic impeded his field of vision.
Therefore Milton hadn’t caught a good enough glimpse of them.
Nevertheless, Milton shook his head at the shameful display,
possibly doing it in hopes of randomly striking a good rapport with
any of the offended pedestrians near him. Unfortunately for him,
nobody so much as bothered to take a second gander at him, despite
how agreeable his sentiments were. The problem with Milton’s faux
defensive gesture is that most of the people near him weren’t
offended. Surely, they were caught off guard and as thus, they were
shocked. Milton’s mistake was in assuming that the initial shock
wouldn’t soon wear off. A second or two later, the people near him
became amused, giggling while they updated their social media posts
to reflect the latest insignificant event of their recent lives.
Milton’s hashtag: sadness.

This had been Milton’s day. It began badly and
continued to worsen as the day progressed. It’s too bad that some
days are just like that for some people; it’s even worse that most
days are like this for Milton.

Approximately two hours has elapsed since he
lost his balance and crashed into his wife’s lamp. He’s been
plagued by excruciating flashes of sharp pain in his lower back.
Pain which shoots up and down his upper leg. And last but not
least, his chest and belly was scalded by a large cup of hot
coffee. Worst of all, he lost his own coffee and donuts when he
stepped out of his apartment building.

At the current and present time, the quality
of Milton’s day shows no signs of improving, especially when one
factors in that he has yet to clock in and start his work shift as
a cellular phone store manager, a job he has never enjoyed even
though he’s become the boss.

Days such as these often cause their hosts to
question the meaning of it all, but not Milton. No, Milton already
has the answer to it all. That answer, for Milton at least, is food
and lots of it. The urge brings him to the decision of calling in
sick to work. Milton, in an audacious display of boldness, calls
his job which sits right across the street with a large glass
window compromising most of the storefront.

“Hey, Tommy? This is Milton. I’m won’t be in
today, I’m sick.”

“Mr. Woodsmith, I can see you across the
street,” the employee replies smartly as he looks out of the store
window, pointing at Milton.

“That’s not me,” Milton lies.

“Uh, yeah it is. I see your lips moving to the
sound of your words.”

“Look, I thought I could make it in, I can’t,
I’m sick. Tell Javier that he’s in charge today.” And with that
Milton hangs up and hails a cab. As his focus is set upon traffic,
he’s oblivious to the obscene and disrespectful gesture his
employee executes. Unfortunately for him, a visiting undercover,
corporate employee does not share that same blindness. The gesture,
Tommy pressing his exposed butt-cheeks against the store window, is
secretly noted and neither Milton, Tommy, nor Javier will know
anything about the impending reprimand, which generally falls upon
the manager of a location, until the higher-ups come to visit the
store. Meanwhile, outside of the store, Milton finally succeeds in
getting a cab to stop for. After awkwardly climbing into the back,
the driver asks him where he wants to go. He ponders it for a few
moments.

“Take me to Eleventh and First
Ave.”

Milton never bothers to look at the license,
his mind being too preoccupied with food.

The driver, a Guido named Antonio Gordo Jr.,
obliges with a courteous nod in the rearview mirror. Meanwhile, he
thinks to himself, “Fat fuck, bet ya going to the bakery,
right?”