"You sexy", she say. "So tan. Tan berry sexy on man."
Handing him his folded laundry, she thinks their relationship is solidified. She greases the customer and counts her cash drawer, but he is not one to be counted on. Sue has no idea he will leave his laundry AND the bill. Her small Asian hands have handled that which is intimate with his skin. And yet...and yet...he is completely unknown. He doesn't give a shit about Sue, or The Fluff & Fold. He uses sexy as a decoy. Women and men are shooting blanks at a false target. Sue has an earthquake in her forecast and only the dog trembles.
He gives notice via e-mail. He stands on the shore with his bourbon in hand, "sexy tan" and Burberry shades. One pedicured toe draws body parts in the sand, and with the other he shoves this ship out to sea with barely a backward glance at the crew he once led. They had vowed to invest in his life and did....helped him rent a home, helped him with the subterranean layers of business, threw birthday parties and wedding showers.
And when it trickles down,
as all lies finally do,
and words start falling foreign on shaking heads
(finding their purchase on ears most shattered in their hearing)
they watch in silent incredulity,
unsure of how to stand face to face with the retreating backside of a fraud.
So they stare at each other, red mouths bobbing
like wooden buoys on an undulating sea of recycled people,
taking on water
through the portholes of gullible hearts.
and it comes as no surprise to anyone really
that they've been taken for a ride,
only that it ended so soon.
(My boss was open with his hedonism. He made no bones about the fact that he would throw you under the bus if it would save himself. The photos of his children, were diversions among his office things. They simply drained his paycheck. Yes...he said that. We knew. We KNEW...but he was so engaging. Funny. Cheeky. I wanted to bottle him for dissection. So up front one moment, and the next he was passing out lies like soup to the homeless. Somehow we lapped it up. He left us on a Monday without warning. We are still finding all he swept under the rug.)
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