Live And Let Die
Chapter 1
By: Makena
Dear Makena,
I'm so glad you're alive and healthy. I'm glad Gavin is okay, too. I'm sorry that your money isn't exactly - existent. I wish you would let me help you, though. I really do. I don't have a lot myself, but I've got enough to share.
Anyway, it's been a couple of years since graduation and I'm still in college. Good Charlotte is going... okay, I guess. It's pretty much the same as it was when you left, but Billy dropped Overflow and I'm their drummer. So we're a complete band that plays in Acme for extra bucks every Saturday and whenever the twins need cash.
Sorry I'm not so good at writing letters. I don't really have anything else to tell you. Waldorf is Waldorf. You've been here a couple of times - it hasn't changed. I don't think it ever really will. Oh well.
I can't wait to see you again. I'm sending you a hundred dollar check. I know it's not a lot, but I hope it helps in some way.
Love always,
-Aaron-
-----
"Assistance to isle 12," the voice said over the loud speaker said in the same monotone he always used. "Assistance to isle 12."
Benji groaned and climbed off the small step ladder he had been standing on. He fingered the wallet chain that hung off his baggy black pants while he walked towards isle 12. He straightened his red Target smock and uncomfortably stretched the arms out on his red, long sleeved polo shirt he was forced to wear.
He hated his job, and he hated getting up every morning so he could get there by nine and leave by five where he would return to the shit hole of an apartment he shared with his brother.
He reached isle 12 where a middle aged woman stood, looking at sheets and pillows.
"Can I help you?" Benji asked. The middle aged woman looked over at him and smiled before she saw his nose ring and green tips.
"Yes, these sheets are advertised as being on sale," the woman said, holding up the sheets for Benji to see. "But here it just says the regular price."
Benji sighed and groaned to himself. This was what made the job unbearable. He hated it enough, stocking shelves and pricing, but the customer's complaints and constant incompetence made the job intolerable.
"If it's on sale, then the scanner's will scan it at the sale price," Benji said, reciting what he had said so many times before. "If it doesn't, ask the cashier. Your ad might be out of date."
"Oh. Well... thank you."
Benji nodded and rolled his eyes as he turned away to continue his stocking. He looked down at his watch. It was three - he still had two more hours of work. He groaned again and found his stepladder, returning to work. He couldn't wait to get off work and go home.
He stocked shampoos and conditioners for a while as a girl caught his eye. She had long blond hair, and she looked maybe his age. She had a small child with her, who was sitting in a small stroller as she browsed the isles.
Benji sighed and continued to stock hair products.
Not a day went by that he didn't think of her. He didn't know where she was, how she was doing, or who she was with. If she had a boy or a girl, if she kept it. He watched the girl for a while as she looked at a shampoo product, but put it back to keep her child's arm from grabbing anything off the shelves.
"No, no," she said. "That's bad... don't take things off the shelves."
Benji sighed and climbed down from his stepladder. He folded it and walked off. He was done, and he didn't want to hang around the isle with the girl and her baby for much longer.
-----
"Goin' some place fancy?" Joel asked, falling back on the over stuffed chair that was set in the living room. Benji sighed rolled his eyes.
"You're so funny, Joel," Benji said sarcastically, taking a sip of his beer. "I have to go to that Christmas party at work today."
"Just say Target, man," Joel laughed. "You sound all important when you say "work" but we all know you work at Target."
Benji shrugged and checked it wallet. There was a twenty, a five and a couple of ones. "Eat me," he said, putting it back in his back pocket.
"Since it's a Christmas party..." Joel began.
"At Target," Benji reminded.
"Christmas party... aren't you supposed to dress up just a little bit?" Benji shrugged and looked down at what he was wearing. He was wearing red, plaid bondage pants with his wallet chain and a navy blue Animal shirt with the sleeves ripped off. He grabbed a hoodie from the couch and slipped it over his head.
"Black nails?" Joel questioned, turning the TV on. Benji looked down at his nails and shrugged.
"Yeah. So?"
"You're such a girl," Joel laughed.
"Fuck you."
Joel laughed again and flipped through the channels. Benji sat down and watched some TV with Joel for a while before getting up and walking towards the door.
"Have fun," Joel said, somewhat absently. Benji rolled his eyes. He didn't like going to work when he HAD to be there, so going to a "work party" wasn't exactly top on his list of things to do.
-----
Benji groaned and slipped some alcohol into his punch to make the party better than it had been going. People with the same reaction as Benji's walked around, sarcastically greeting each other to the fun of the holiday party and meeting their significant others. He groaned again and tried to avoid the manager and his grossly oversized wife.
"Having fun?"
Benji turned around and realized he had almost backed into one of his co-workers, a girl with medium length wavy hair that was died black. She had thick-rimmed glasses and a black choker and a "come over here and die" look on her face.
"I hate these fucking parties," she muttered. "I probably should have just moved with my brother or something. This fucking blows."
Benji sighed and nodded, watching people walk around them. "Just look out for the manager for me, okay?" Benji asked. "I'm trying to avoid his wife, cause I swear, if I meet her one more time, I'm gonna kill her."
"That bitchy, eh?"
"That fucking dumb."
"Hello, Benjamin," a deeper voice said from behind. Benji turned around to see the manager - a balding, shorter man with a fake grin that never died. Standing next to him was his wife, a large woman with curly blond hair and a couple of grease stains on her red blouse.
"I'm gonna go flush my head down the toilet and look for my sanity," the girl said, taking a step back before quickly turning away and walking towards the bathrooms. Benji rolled his eyes.
"Bitch," he muttered under his breath before turning back to the manager and his wife.
"Benjamin, this is my wife Claire."
"I know who this is, pookie," Claire said. "I see you've chosen to dress up for the occasion."
Benji shrugged. "I don't dress up," he replied, trying not to let her get to him.
"Doesn't look like you dress well, either."
"And you do," Benji scoffed sarcastically under his breath.
"I just don't understand how my poor little pookie keeps hiring you young hooligans - you're all the same with your slacker attitude and dressing as if you had no money at all."
That was it. Benji had put up with her for too long. He was trying to let it all go, get past her one more time, but she had crossed the line and there was no going back.
"You know what?" Benji roared. "Fuck you! And shut the fuck up, because you don't know me at all. I work hard for my money, because you're right, I don't HAVE any."
Everyone at the party had stopped their conversations to see who dared to yell at the manager's wife. But Benji wasn't finished. Not yet.
"And further more, I'd rather not have money so I can't bring it all home to my fat fuck of a wife that'll probably spend it all on hamburgers at McDonalds, anyway!"
"Benjamin Levi Madden, that is quite enough!"
Benji turned around and rolled his eyes. His manager was standing directly behind him, arms crossed and fumigated. "Fuck," he muttered.
"Oh, fuck is right," the manager said. "You don't talk to customers OR my wife that way. You're fired."
"Bah - I quit," Benji said. "I've had it with you anyway. You and this fucked up job."
"I said YOU'RE FIRED!" the manager screamed. Benji backed up a little and shook his head.
"Good," Benji said. He turned to walk away, yelling "fuck" as loud as he could before pushing the doors open and walking out into the Maryland winter weather.
Benji began the walk home to his and Joel's apartment when he made a detour at the drug store. The only money had was what had been in his wallet before he left home, but it was plenty enough for a six pack and some cigarettes.
"It's Benji!"
Benji looked around and saw Nicole behind the counter with Billy talking to her from the other side. She was wearing a blue smock with her nametag pinned crookedly to it and some other buttons here and there. One of the sleeves had started to rip off and she had pinned it back together with safety pins.
"Hey, Benj," Billy said. "What's up?"
Benji shrugged and walked down to the end of the store to get a beer. He headed back to the front to pay and talk a little bit, before he headed home.
"I can't sell you that, Benj," Nicole said, eyeing his beer. "You're a minor."
Benji frowned and looked over at Billy, who had just bought a pack of cigarettes. "He's not 18 and you sold him those," he pointed out, nodding his head at Billy, who was pocketing his purchase.
"Yeah, but he had an ID for 'em," Nicole explained. "They can't bust me if I thought it was real."
Benji groaned and rolled his eyes. "Just ring it up, huh?" he said. "Put it in a paper bag so if I run into some one they won't know."
Nicole sighed and hesitated. Finally, she snatched up the beer and rang it up. "Anything else or just this beer I've sold you illegally?" Nicole said, slightly annoyed.
"Marlboro reds," Benji said.
"Ohhh," Billy said, taking a lighter out of his pocket, simply to see if he had one. "Hard shit."
Benji rolled his eyes and paid Nicole what he owed her. She handed him the paper bag and his cigarettes.
"Nicole!" What appeared to be the manager walked out of the back and stood a foot in front of the door.
"Fuck," she muttered. "Yeah?"
"You can go on your break now."
Relieved, Nicole jumped over the counter and followed Benji and Billy outside.
"Hey, can I bum a ride with you, Billy?" Benji asked as the three walked outside.
"Sure," Billy replied. "What happened to your car?"
"I've never owned a car, Billy," Benji said with a short sigh as he lit up one of his cigarettes. Billy shrugged. Nicole leaned up against the brick building and shivered.
"It's a little fucking cold out here," she said between chattering teeth, folding her arms across her chest. Billy raised an eyebrow at her.
"That could be because you're wearing nothing but a t-shirt," he said. Nicole shrugged.
"And this nifty blue smock," she said. "And these bondage pants. And these brown shoes. And..."
"Shut up," Billy said. "Your smock isn't nifty."
"Sure it is," Nicole said. "Smocks are awesome. Benji wears a smock..." Benji shook his head and took a drag of his cigarette.
"No I don't."
"I thought you Target people had to wear red smocks?" Nicole said.
Benji nodded. "They do. I got fired."
Billy and Nicole glanced at each other as an uncomfortable silence fell between them. Finally, Billy cleared his throat and Nicole looked down at her watch.
"Come on, Benj," Billy said. "I gotta get going."
"My five minutes are almost over," Nicole said with a sigh. "See you later."
Benji sighed and followed Billy to his car. If that had been their reaction to his job loss, he hated to think what Joel's reaction would be.
-----
Benji opened the door and sighed as he looked on at his dirty, unkempt apartment. He lived in such a shit whole to begin with, he didn't know how he could even keep what he had since he didn't have a job anymore.
Joel had fallen asleep on the couch, the TV playing a re-run of The Simpsons. Benji turned the lights on and tossed his keys carelessly on the counter before taking one of the beers and snapping it open.
Joel stirred and finally sat up, looking sleepily at his brother. He looked at his watch and then back up at him and yawned slightly.
"You're home early," he said. "Have that much fun at the Target party?"
He began to laugh, but Benji just sighed. He tossed Joel a beer and went to sit down on the chair next to the couch, trying to hear the dilemma on tonight's episode.
'Come on, Homer,' Benji pleaded to himself. 'Do something funny - make me laugh. I need to laugh.'
"Um... what's wrong, Benj?" Joel asked. Benji looked up at Joel and sighed before hanging his head.
"I... got fired today," he said sadly. Joel didn't say anything for a while. Finally, he muted the TV when an advertisement for used cars came on.
"You're joking," he said. Benji shook his head, staring at the floor.
"I'm not, man," Benji said.
"Jesus," Joel cursed. "What the hell... who gets fucking fired from Target?"
Benji frowned. "I'm sorry!" he said. "It's not like I could help it. The manager's wife was bitching at me and insulting me. I mean, what the fuck was I supposed to do?"
"Fuck, Benji," Joel sighed, putting his hands on his head. "I... god damn it..." He paused and looked up at Benji. "We can't keep the apartment, you know."
Benji sighed. He knew that they couldn't live on Joel's salary, and that finding another job was going to be hard and that they would get evicted before Benji could find one and get paid enough to help save the apartment.
It wouldn't be the first place they would have been evicted from, but it still pissed him off.
'It'll all change,' he tired to reassure himself, watching the show come back on. 'Once we're famous, none of this will happen to any of us ever again.'