Working in a body shop comes with its own sense of humor. Living in Idaho comes with its own sense of justice.
Tony pulled the long sleeves of his shirt down until the fabric bunched over his wrists. How was he going to explain any of this? The cold metal of the chair and the drab, small room did little to calm his nerves. He glanced across the table at the older man setting up a recording device.
“What’s your name again?” Tony asked. “Detective…? Agent…?”
“Just call me Adam.” The man had a black suit and gray hair close-cropped into a military haircut. He punched a button on the recorder, then announced, “Today is May 26, 2023. The time is 10:03 am. I am speaking with Tony Williams, adult male, forty-nine years of age, concerning the events on May 24th at approximately 9:45am. Sir, please confirm all this is correct.”
“Uh, yeah.” Tony felt a trickle of sweat on the back of his neck.
“Now, start from the beginning.”
As if it were that simple. Would they arrest him after this interview or just haul him off to some secret government lab?
Adam leveled a blank, hard stare as he waited.
Tony swallowed and tucked his arms across his chest. “I guess I should probably explain about Jesse first.”
“Please state for the record, who is Jesse?
“The guy who works for me.”
The man in the suit clicked his pen and scrawled something in his notebook. “Continue.”
“Well, everyone at the shop teased Jesse. You know? He was from Idaho, so we called him a potato picker. He was late all the time. Always giving these lame excuses. He had to put money in the dummy jar pretty much every single week.”
“Dummy jar?” Adam paused his pen scribbles.
“Every time someone at the shop—”
“This would be the Sandy Auto Collision Repair shop on 85th and State Street. Correct?”
“Yeah. Anytime someone does something stupid—like forgets to put the clip on a bumper, preps the wrong panel, uses the wrong grit of sandpaper—you have to put money in the dummy jar. At the end of the year, during our Christmas party, we do a raffle to see who gets the money. Mac won last year. There was just over—”
“Let’s keep to the events that transpired on May the twenty-fourth.”
Tony tugged at his sleeves to pull them past his knuckles, then tucked his arms back over his chest. “Like I said. We always teased Jesse. It wasn’t that big a deal.”
“What kind of teasing?”
This guy looked as serious as Death himself. He probably paid someone to explain jokes to him. He wouldn’t understand working around cars. Guys in a shop… well, they had their own sense of humor.
“So, I’m Jesse’s boss, right? I’m the shop manager and you see… Well, Jesse was coming in late all the time. I got sick of yelling at him, and I didn’t want to fire him, so I told him every time he was late, I was gonna give him a purple nurple.”
“A purple… nurple?” Adam said the word as if he were learning a foreign language. The wrinkles on his forehead pursed with suspicion.
Tony nodded. “Yeah.”
“For the record, describe what a purple nurple is.”
“You know. When you grab a guy’s, uh, nipple and twist it. Some people call it a titty twister.”
The man tapped his pen a few times. “You do realize this constitutes a form of sexual assault?”
Tony wanted to rub his hands through his hair, but tucked his arms tighter across his chest. “What was I supposed to do? Yelling at him didn’t work. It wasn’t like I could demote him. He’s a prepper! He sands cars all day. Besides, he agreed to it. I told him I could either fire him or give him a little bit of pain and he said he’d take it.”
Adam stared for a full ten seconds before speaking. “How long did this go on?”
“I don’t know. A few months.”
“And how often did you give Jesse a… purple nurple?”
“Four or five times a week. He got better after a while. One week, he was only late once.”
“Did Jesse complain about these assaults?”
“I guess.”
“What would he do?” Adam gave a quick glare, then positioned his pen to write.
“He’d say things like, ‘There is one who sticks closer than a brother. He who has eyes to see, let him see.’ Or, ‘Treat others how you want to be treated. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.’”
“These are references to Bible passages?”
“Yeah, I guess so. We called him Pastor Potato Picker when he’d get like that.”
“The morning of May twenty-fourth, what happened?”
A combination of ice and fire coursed through Tony. If he could bury his face in his hands, he would. But he couldn’t. Not anymore.
“Jesse was late—again.”
“What time did he arrive at work?”
“After nine. I think it was almost nine thirty.” Tony tugged at the edge of his sleeve with the tips of his fingers.
“What time is Jesse scheduled to start work?” Adam kept writing.
“Eight.”
“And what happened next?”
Tony rolled his shoulders and shifted in his chair, staring down at his forearms. “Jesse was carrying a box of donuts. He tried to say the reason he was late was because he stopped to buy donuts for everybody.”
Silence filled the gap between them for a few moments. Tony took a deep breath and continued.
“I told him, ‘You know the price. Pay up.’ And Jesse was all, ‘But I was getting donuts.’ I told him I didn’t care, and he still had to pay up.”
Nausea swept over Tony as he stared at his arms, so he tipped his head back to look at the ceiling. “Jesse kept saying I needed eyes to see what I was doing to him. That he was gonna give me eyes to see.”
“Then what happened?”
Tony closed his eyes. “I made him pay up.”
“Which means?”
“I gave him a purple nurple.”
Adam cleared his throat. “You grabbed him. By the nipple.”
“Yeah.”
“The same as in previous times?”
Tony shrugged. “Maybe a little harder.”
“Was anyone else present when this happened?”
“Yeah. He was hollering so loud almost everyone in the shop came over.”
Adam turned another page on his pad. “Go on.”
With a deep breath, Tony looked back down at his sleeves. “Then he started yelling at us. Something like, ‘Eyes to see and ears to hear on every hand against me.’”
His voice caught in his throat, and he paused. Tremors shook through him. His chest and shoulders felt as if worms were crawling under his skin.
“How did the fire start?” Adam looked up from his notes.
“Everyone just went crazy.” Tony fought to keep his voice level. “It just didn’t make any sense.”
“What didn’t make sense?”
“How it happened.”
Adam’s voice went terse. “I need details here. How did the fire start?”
“I don’t know. Maybe someone kicked over some solvent near the RC battery chargers. The owner told us we couldn’t charge our RC cars in the shop anymore, but, ya know. People forget or get lazy.”
“Are you saying you didn’t see how the fire started?”
Heat drained out of Tony’s face. “I wasn’t looking at the fire.”
“What were you looking at?” Adam’s tone continued to harden.
Tony’s vision fell out of focus. “Myself.” He shuddered. “I was looking at myself. And everyone was freaking out.”
Adam tapped his pen on the table in rhythm with each word. “When did you first notice the fire?”
Tony blinked a few times. “I guess once it got close to me. That’s when I saw everyone running around and screaming.”
“Focus on what happened.” He huffed, then placed both hands on the table. “I can’t help you if you’re not honest with me. Now walk back through that day. What happened after Jesse yelled at you?”
Tony pursed his lips, then looked up at the older man. “You really want to know?”
“Yes.” Adam snapped up his pan. “As much as you can remember.”
Ice prickled along Tony’s cheeks as he unfolded his arms. Slowly, carefully, he loosened the sleeves of his shirt and pushed them up to his elbows. He raised his arms to reveal his hands and wrists.
“Jesse gave us… eyes to see. And ears to hear.”
The image of Adam seated across the desk doubled, then tripled in Tony’s vision as he opened the eyes embedded in his palms. Gasps echoed in the baby-like ears below his wrists. Tony watched the man pale, then stumble backwards out of his chair.
It felt like looking at the man through a broken mirror. Three different horrified gazes just staring at him in shock and confusion.
“As you can see,” Tony said, “I was a little distracted when the fire started.”
Recent Comments