Soul's Road: A Fiction Collection (5 page)

“Interesting… Well, I’m obliged to tell you the consequences of failure to pay your taxes—”

“I ain’t got no bank account for you people to freeze neither. Why don’t you save yourself the time and energy and stop calling—”

Alba’s screen froze for a few seconds and then a prompt appeared asking if the taxpayer had terminated the call.

She clicked Yes, but nothing happened. Her computer had crashed, but she didn’t mind. It gave her an excuse to do nothing. She looked around the area to see if anybody else’s had as well, but everyone else was busy talking to taxpayers except for Catherine. She wasn’t at her desk.

Alba got up to stretch and took the long way around their bank of cubicles to Catherine’s desk. Catherine had only been with the IRS for four months but you’d think she’d been with Uncle Sam all her life if you went by the state of her desk. It was cluttered with personal items that only emphasized how depressing their jobs were.

There was an embroidered pillow with Catherine’s initials on the seat of her chair. Alba lifted it to her nose, but it didn’t smell of anything. A yellow and white satin tissue box cover hid a box of Kleenex behind the computer screen. There was a stand-up calendar featuring snow globes from around the world, a jar of yellow M&Ms, and a mug that read “God is my copilot” sat to the right of her keyboard.

Alba opened the lid to the M&Ms and stuck her nose inside. They smelled fresh and so she grabbed a handful. She lifted the jar over the cubicle and motioned in front of Mort. He was still on the phone, but he grabbed a couple from the jar and mouthed a thank you.

Alba had never seen a calendar of snow globes before so she started to flip through the months. Catherine had written birthdays and anniversaries to help her remember. There were hand drawn balloons next to a date. Alba assumed it was either Catherine’s birthday or her husband’s.

She dropped the calendar on top of the pillow and looked at the photo of Catherine and Ted. They looked good together, both unattractive and boring looking. Alba smiled.

She grabbed another handful of M&Ms and slipped opened the top drawer. A yellow and white fabric covered book sat on top of a pile of blank timesheets. Angels were sewn into the cover’s fabric and Alba traced its stitching, Order My Steps. It was a Bible. She could tell by its thickness. FFA was stitched in the bottom right corner.

“Alba? What you doing at Catherine’s desk?” It was Sadie, self-appointed mother hen of the group and royal pain in the ass.

Alba tilted her head back and dropped the last two M&Ms in her mouth. “You know what FFA stand for?” Alba asked Sadie.

“This is not your desk.”

Alba flicked her hip against the drawer and it slammed shut. “What ever would we do without you, Sadie.”

The lights flickered and the PCs sounded as if they were switched off, and then the familiar hum of them automatically rebooting sounded.

“Second of the day,” Alba said to Mort.

“Another hack,” Justin said as he stood and stretched.

Various religious groups had taken to hacking into the IRS in an attempt to clear everyone’s tax records. As a result, whenever Tech Support thought that someone had breached the system, the entire network went down and everyone was on a spontaneous five-minute break while they investigated.

“I hope they get in and erase every-god-damn-thing,” Justin said as he reached over for Alba to give him a few M&Ms.

“That’s not nice,” Sadie said.

“Hey, Sadie,” Alba began, “I hear that someone’s stealing toilet paper from the lady’s bathroom. You should check on that.”

“Are those your M&Ms, Alba?” Sadie asked, determined to restore order.

Sadie was the second least-liked person in the PVRD. She thought it was because she was Black, but truthfully it was because she was a cliché. Sadie was one day away from insulin injections. Her fat oozed over her ankles like warm chocolate over a banana split.

There was a soft beep as the door to their area opened. It was enough of a distraction to ease the tension and Alba went back to her desk leaving Catherine’s M&M jar on top of the calendar.

Bernard from the cafeteria walked in. He was autistic, but a functioning one. He was the only one Mort knew who had worked at the IRS longer than he and Alba. Bernard told everyone he met that he remembered the names of each person he had ever been introduced to since childhood. Luckily, no one was foolish enough to test him on it.

Bernard once asked Alba to the movies, but Alba had been going through another divorce and politely declined. He never asked again, but each Valentine’s Day he would bring her a small box of chocolates and a card with two monkeys on it.

“Hey, Alba.”

“Hey, Bern. What you got that’s hot?”

Bernard pushed a trolley of genetically modified sandwiches and warm cans of soda. “Sorry, no more turkey. Morning shift ate it all.”

Mort gave Bernard five dollars and Bernard handed him a bologna on wheat. “You catching the bus tonight?” Alba asked Bernard

“Yep.”

“Don’t let it leave without us, Bern,” Mort said.

“I won’t.”

About a year ago, a couple of IRS workers were harassed on their way home, and then two were killed (one knifed, the other ran over by a motorcycle) by members of different radical religious groups protesting the Personal Values Reclaim Tax. Since then, the IRS offered its evening shift workers a free shuttle bus to the major metro stations.

The sad thing was that the two killed didn’t even work for the PVRD. One was a temporary worker hired during tax season and the other worked in the mailroom. Since then, threats were made, suspicious packages delivered, and the occasional bomb scare, but it didn’t bother Alba—and Mort was old enough to know that when it was his time, there was little he could do about it.

“God, could this day go any slower.” Justin leaned over his cube so that he was looking into Mort’s. “So how many you get today?”

Mort didn’t like to engage in office chitchat. It led to lunch invitations, after-dinner drinks, and plans over the weekend. He shrugged.

“I got five,” Justin said. “Man, but I got hung up on a lot. You?”

Mort nodded.

Alba wheeled her chair into Mort’s cube and sat staring at Justin.

Latisha, from the next section of cubes joined them. “What you guys doing?”

“Nothing, just hanging out at Mort’s desk,” Alba said.

Latisha was new, beautiful, and clearly wouldn’t be with the PVRD long. Alba liked her. She smelled nice.

“What’s that you’re wearing?” Alba asked.

Latisha lifted her arm and sniffed. “Cocoa butter.”

“Smells good on you,” Alba said and looked at Sadie who was still lingering.

“Hey, who’s that?” Latisha asked, pointing to the page of a woman torn from a JC Penny’s catalog. It was the only thing in the way of decoration that Mort had in his cube.

“Yeah, man, I’ve been meaning to ask you that,” said Justin.

The woman in the catalog was dressed in a dark blue skirt that stopped below her knees. The skirt’s matching jacket artfully minimized her waist by cinching under her breasts and then flowed out to follow the shape of the skirt. Her hair was dyed blonde and her makeup tactfully minimized her full face.

Mort felt a little uncomfortable with all the attention focused on him. “A friend.”

“Holy shit, Mort, you dating a model?” Justin shouted.

Mort looked around nervously and then reached over to take the page from the wall.

“She’s beautiful, Mort,” Latisha said.

“Well, it’s not like she’s a supermodel,” Justin added. “But yeah, she’s definitely pretty.”

The familiar beeping of their computers rebooting filled the growing silence, and Alba rolled back to her desk.

“I had better get back. I’m trying to reach ten repayments before the night’s over. So far I’m at nine and there’s only like an hour to go,” Latisha said. “Wish me luck.”

Justin glanced at the catalog page in Mort’s hand once more before he went back to his desk.

Sadie leaned over Mort’s shoulder making him feel uncomfortable. “I didn’t know you were dating a white woman, Mort—”

“She’s not—”

“You know, my brother’s got himself a white girl too. We have something in common,” she whispered.

Mort’s hand began to visibly shake. He placed the catalog page in his lap and fumbled around in his desk drawer until he touched the corner of his notebook.

“You know, we should have lunch.”

Please go away.

“It’d give us a chance to get to know one another better. How long you been working at the IRS, Mort?”

Sweat broke out on the back of his neck. Small talk! It always began with small talk.

“What you doing tomorrow?”

Mort’s throat grew tight.

“You wanna have lunch?”

Mort fast-forwarded to bake sales and school science labs. He shook his head.

Sadie looked stunned, but the door to their area opened and Jenny walked in.

Sadie hurried to log in, and once again the depression resettled.

***

Alba was losing a game of Solitaire when Catherine returned to her desk carrying a green folder at the end of their shift. She’d been to see HR. HR was the only department allowed to use green folders.

“Who’s been at my desk?” she asked, yanking open the top drawer.

Mort kept his head down.

“Mort, did you see anyone?”

Alba chuckled as Mort shook his head without looking up.

Catherine looked at Alba, and Alba stared back.

Catherine picked up her almost-empty jar of M&Ms. “Did you do this?”

Alba continued to stare.

“Did you hear me? Did you do this?”

“Been to see HR.” Alba nodded towards the green folder.

Catherine’s face turned red. “Jesus, give me strength.”

“You know, if you say that he answers, they’ll lock you up for that. Isn’t that funny.”

Catherine looked as if she was having trouble following Alba’s conversation. “Just stay away from my desk.”

“Don’t you have to forgive me?”

“What?”

“As a Christian, don’t you have to forgive my transgressions and such? I’m sure it’s in the Bible somewhere. ‘Thou shall not overreact when transgressed upon or something.’”

Catherine’s jaw dropped. “Alba, Satan’s got a hold on you that only Jesus can relinquish. You are an evil little spirit, do you know that?”

“I-I had some too,” Mort said. “I’ll bring you a new bag tomorrow.”

Catherine swung around to face Mort.

“Yeah, me too, but I didn’t think you’d wig out about it though,” Justin said. “Damn, I’ll bring you like two bags.”

Alba thought Catherine would explode as she stomped back to her desk. Catherine retrieved a few things from her drawer and no one paid her any attention as she left.

“Thanks,” Alba said to Mort.

He was scribbling in his notebook. “No problem. I think you should leave her stuff alone though, Alba. She seemed agitated.”

Justin walked over to join them. “So you guys buying her a new bag of M&Ms?”

Mort nodded.

“I plan to forget,” Alba said.

“Catching the bus?”

They nodded.

“Okay, then I’ll meet you down there. It leaves in like ten minutes so don’t be late.”

“You sign the card?” Alba asked as she and Mort left.

“I’d rather not,” Mort said.

Alba asked Mort to wait while she went into the handicap bathroom. When she came out, she had taken down the two puffballs in her hair.

“Do I really look that different?”

Mort looked her over. “You’ve lost weight.”

“Yeah, but I feel like I look older.”

Mort laughed. “That happens to all of us.”

They rode the elevator down in silence. When they stepped out, the lobby was empty. “I feel like I’m a different person than the one in the catalog. Why do you keep that anyway?”

Mort held the door for her as they walked out. “It reminds me that it’s never too late to change what you don’t like.”

Alba gently shoved Mort. “Don’t try that smooth talk with me, Mortimer.”

Justin leaned out of the bus door and waved at them to hurry.

The shuttle bus was full with the evening shift workers. Only two seats were left and they weren’t beside one another. Alba took the first seat next to Latisha.

“Uh, sorry Alba. I think someone’s sitting here. This book was here when I got on.”

Alba looked down at the yellow and white fabric cover. Alba liked that she no longer resembled the woman in the catalog. That was Alba’s old self. It took her years before she realized that she didn’t like modeling, and even more before she became comfortable with herself and had the confidence to express her needs without fear of disparagement. She was through being the punching bag. Alba had a voice and she was using it.

The shuttle eased out into traffic and Alba leaned over Latisha to lower the window. She grabbed the yellow and white fabric covered Bible, tossed it into traffic, and sat down.

It landed on the hood of the car next to them. The driver blared his horn just as the book exploded, deploying the driver’s airbags and shattering the shuttle windows.

The shuttle driver slammed on the brakes as traffic came to a halt.

“Oh my God,” Latisha repeated in quick succession. “Oh my God.”

“What the hell was that?” the driver shouted as he got off to see what had happened.

Alba pushed up off the floor and looked around. There was a slight ringing in her ears, but she reached over to help Latisha who was bleeding from the side of her face.

“Everybody off the bus,” the driver said.

Alba felt Mort’s hand on her shoulder. “It was a bomb,” she yelled. “Nut-job tried to blow us up.”

***

Four months later, Alba sat on the witness stand and testified that she had seen the yellow and white fabric covered Bible in Catherine Minette’s drawer hours before it exploded on the hood of a car. She also told the jurors about what she heard while hacking into the IRS’ telephone network, but it was Brian Biggs who sealed the case for the district attorney. The police traced phone calls, emails, and IRS inter-office envelopes that linked him to Catherine and the Freedom Fighters for America. He received a lifetime probationary sentence, two hundred thousand hours of community service, had to wear a monitoring ankle bracelet for five years, and he was no longer eligible to work for any government agency. (And four months of prison food had helped him to finally lose the extra weight.)