Retirement Fund

A Mack Davis Short Story

I worked my thru the corporate office’s cafesque vending apparatus, a cafeteria style vending machine where you did all the work, loading up on coffee-flavored dairy products, premade sammiches & other junk that I paid for on an empty visa card that the automated checkout still thought was good—leave it to the future of good-ol-fashion electronic technology to fuck up something as simple as that. I learned about this little food oasis from a lap dancer from Wild Bill’s Topless Starlet Review II located just off of Route 12. Starlet Review I is so far on the eastside, the city the streets stopped having names. Avenues reduce to just letters. Where she learned about it was from a gig she did after working hours at these same corporate digs, a celebration for some Cat’s birthday with some bouncing boobs & birthday cake. Or more plausibly the bouncing boobs were the birthday cake. “In the break room where we were getting ready,” she had said to me, “they had all this fresh food and drinks and stuff. I said, ‘hey this is great, you guys get all this stuff for free.’ And Ronald, he was the guy that booked us, he said ‘no. That’s our version of a vending machine. You pay for your stuff at the little kiosk.’ It reminded me of those places, like...like—” Like 7/11, I had said. “No...well, maybe. What’s a 7/11?” “It’s like a fancy gas station. You know, like one that sells good food like sushi & maybe a pizza.” She smiled in recognition and said, “Yeah! Like one of those!” Beauty & bouncability always trumped brains when it came to the peeps Wild Bill hired.

“I’ll have to go check it out,” I told her.

She laughed. “What? How? You have to work there to use it.”

I learned long ago that if you show up in the right outfit & an attitude of how dare you question me I own the place, most, if not all, doors open to you. And this place was no different. Actually it turned out to be the easiest to crack. I didn’t even have to don on a suit. Every day was casual Friday apparently. That made the whole job that much easier. The hardest part was getting in, which wasn’t that hard at all. I became a regular lunch goer. So much so that the staff came to think of me as a traveling office worker. And in a sense I am. Just not their office. Or their type of work.

I had the place to myself. Munching on my lunchtime yummies waiting. I had been playing this little game for a little over two months here at PMR Industries, a precious metal warehouse, and it was time to put the full plan into effect.

“Afternoon, Pete,” I said when the door to the office area opened. “How’s the day treating you?”

Pete smiled. “You know how it goes. Working hard at hardly working. How about yourself, Richard?”

“The same, the same.”

Pete wandered over to the vending area, perusing the goodies. He sighed, deeply. “They never change anything in this, do they?”

“I’m sure they take a survey on what stays and what goes and keep it that way.”

“Yeah.” Pete sighed again. Made his choice. Paid and started back to the door that led to the offices beyond. “I need your gig, Richard. Travel around. See different places. You got the life.”

I laughed. “Yeah, it’s better than being stuck in the same place all the time. But it can be a pain in the ass, nonetheless.”

“A job’s a job, huh?”

“Pretty much.”

“Well, see you around, Richard.”

I popped up from the table I sat at just as Pete was reaching the door. “Hold on a sec. I’ll follow you back. I have something to ask.”

Pete pulled out a plastic card attached to a string lanyard. “What do you think of these new electronic key cards for the door locks?”

“A godsend. I was always losing my key,” I said.

Pete laughed. “In the end I’m sure the cards will be the same way.”

I laughed too. “So true.”

Pete slid the mag-strip of his card through a slit in the side of a small black box next to the doorknob. A beep sounded then the door lock clicked. Pete grabbed the knob and pulled open the door. I could see Pete’s ID was also attached to the lanyard. As we walked back towards his desk, Pete twirled the cards on the lanyard. The act reminded me of a cartoon I used to watch as a kid where a wolf in a zoot suit twirled his watch chain.

“So what did you have to ask?” said Pete as we made our way past desk cubicles.

“Something better suited for your office. Away from interested ears.”

Pete arched his eyebrows.

We entered his “office” which in reality wasn’t much bigger than the cubicles that sat in rows of the office proper. The main differences were he had a wall (sans door) blocking him off from the cubicles and a window that looked out at the parking lot. He tossed his lanyard on his desk and took his seat. I leaned down on my hands over the top of his desk.

“I wanted to know,” I said, in a quiet tone. Taking a quick peek towards the door before continuing. “I wanted to know where you and Ronald got the girls for that party?

Pete nearly choked on the drink he’d bought. “You...you know...about,” now he quickly looked towards his door and lowered his voice more, “you know about that?”

“Well, yeah. Ronald said it was a pretty wild birthday party.”

“Oh, yeah.” He smiled at the memory. “Shit I’m surprised he said something about that. We could all get fired for it.”

“No worries, Pete. My lips are sealed. A friend of mine is getting married and I wanted to send him off in style. If you know what I mean.”

Pete laughed. “Then these are the girls for you. They did things you only saw in movies.” I smiled. Knowing full well that some of the girls that populated Wild Bill’s were girls in those kinds of movies. “I still can’t believe Ronald told you about that,” continued Pete. “He was the most vocal about not saying anything.”

“I’m not surprised,” I said, “those are the type of guys that always seem to talk first. But I wouldn’t mention it to him about our conversation. You know he’d want to turn that back on us if anyone else knows or if the big guys catch wind.”

“Good idea.” Pete made a turning of a key motion in front of his mouth.

I smiled and watched a white cargo van pass by Pete’s window. “Well let me get out your hair. I have to check something out on the floor and make sure it gets sent. Gotta make that money, right?”

“Damn straight. If you’re not. Someone else will.”

I pushed up off the table. Swiping Pete’s ID and key card as I did. “I wouldn’t want that,” I said with a smile.

I turned right on leaving Pete’s office. Heading for the door marked:

WAREHOUSE

AUTHORIZED

PERSONNEL ONLY

The set up was no different from the door that led from the break room to the offices and I repeated the trick with the key card with the square box next to the doorknob, pushing through as the door beeped and clicked.

The worlds of the office to the warehouse floor could not be further from each other. The office area had a tight structure and muted noise whereas the warehouse was open and loud. Honking horns from forklifts echoed in the vastness of palletized freight and dock doors traveling the length of the building.

I walked over to a small stand up desk. The desk was covered in work orders and shipping bills, found what I was looking for and made my way deeper into the warehouse.

To my left, dock doors ran the length of the building, to my right orange colored steel racking stood almost to the ceiling and stretched out from the wall ending roughly in the center of the warehouse. Each rack was set up into square bays for pallets of freight. In-between each rack was an open space where stand up forklifts called reach trucks made their way back and forth either placing pallets or extracting pallets where they were then staged in lanes etched out on the concrete floor between the racks and the dock doors. Regular sit-down forklifts took pallets to and from the staging area. It was a well choreographed dance.

I walked along the staged freight looking for one that fit my needs. During my little visits for lunch I had been learning all about what PMR Industries did and found it quite fascinating. I stopped at a pallet that almost came to my knee and as I squatted down for a closer look it was exactly what I was looking for.

I pulled off the freight bill and jotted down the basic info on to the one I took from the shipper’s desk.

“Can I help you,” a voice behind me said.

Without looking back I reached into my pocket for Pete’s ID, and showed it to him upside down. My thumb conveniently over the photo.

“Pete Sachs. Warehouse Ops Manager,” I said, putting away the ID and continuing to fill out the paperwork. Then I turned to my new friend before he could answer. “Are you new here? I may not remember everyone’s name but I can usually place a face.”

“I... ah... I... ah,” he stammered. “I’ve been here a couple of months.”

“Great!” I said with a broad smile. “Welcome aboard.” I stood up. “I take it you’re certified to drive a forklift or you wouldn’t be here, right?”

“Um, yeah. That’s my primary job here.”

“Fantastic. I need you to take this pallet and weigh it.” I handed him my paperwork. “Fill in the weight and meet me over at overhead door number three.”

“Ah...”

I gave my friend a confused look. “What’s the matter...”

“Lloyd.”

“Lloyd.” I gave him another of my winning smiles. “What’s the matter, Lloyd?”

“Well, sir. I believe that freight just arrived today.”

“Indeed it did, Lloyd. I’ve been waiting for this. It needs to head out right away for a special big money project.”

“Oh. Okay.” Lloyd paused a moment. Then said, “You said overhead door three?”

“I did, Lloyd. But please weigh it first. It’s very important to get the actual weight.”

“No problem, sir.”

“Fantastic, Lloyd. Who’s your supervisor? I want to make sure to tell him how helpful you’ve been.”

Lloyd’s face beamed. “Thank you, sir. Glad to help. It’s Marc Meyers.”

“Who’s Marc Meyers?”

“My supervisor.”

“Right. Right.”

I watched Lloyd run off and hop on his forklift, then turned away and walked toward overhead door 3. Glancing around at the other workers as I did. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Just another day doing day to day things.

I was alone at the overhead door. No one seemed to care. No one took notice. The door started to rumble as it made its way up after I punched the open button. On the other side stood a stocky, barrel chested man with the face of a boxer that allowed his nose to be used as a speed bag underneath a baker boy hat that screamed ‘I’m Southside Irish’ in front of the open back doors of a van.

“Hello,” I said as the door stopped rumbling as it reached apex.

The man said nothing in return. Just tipped his hat slightly.

Lloyd pulled his forklift with the pallet next to me and handed me the paperwork for it. I looked it over and smiled. “Thanks, Lloyd. Go ahead and put the pallet in the van.” To the driver I said, handing him the paper work, “Just sign John Hancock, right there.” I pointed to a line. He signed and handed it back. “Great. We’re all set then.”

I tore out the middle sheet of the paperwork and handed over the two remaining sheets to the driver who put them in his shirt pocket then turned and closed the van doors before making his way back to the driver’s seat.

Lloyd jumped off the forklift and made his way to the door controls. The rumble began once again as the corrugated metal door made its decent back towards earth.

“Thanks, Lloyd,” I said with a little wave. Taking the paperwork back to the stand up desk still covered with identical shipping bills and shuffled it with the others. The door to the offices beeped and clicked and once again I found myself in a cocoon of hushed tones.

“Well I’m headed out, Pete,” I said, leaning around the wall. “Thanks again for the info. Remember mum’s the word.”

Pete looked up from his computer screen and smiled. “No worries there.”

I turned and started back to the cafeteria, stopped and said back to Pete, “I think you dropped this.” I tossed Pete’s ID and key card on to his desk.

He looked down at it with surprise. “I would have sworn I threw it on my desk.”

I laughed and said, “It’s already turning into your regular keys.”

The cafeteria was just as empty as it was earlier as I grabbed another coffee flavored dairy product without pretending to pay this time around since there was no longer a need too and walked outside. The sun was high and bright. Small halos beamed off windshields of parked cars as I walked over to the van and got into the passenger seat next to the man with the boxer’s face.

“Reggie, good to see you,” I said.

“Mack Davis. As I live and breathe,” said Reggie. “I wasn’t a hundred percent sure it was really you that left the message to show up here today and get...” Reggie looked back at the pallet. “Whatever the hell that is.”

“Retirement.”

Reggie laughed. “Whatever you say, Mack.”

“I have a guy that’s going to pay thirty three cents on the dollar for that.”

“Wow. Can the tin-can-man spare it?”

“Hand me that bill of lading.” Reggie took the paperwork I gave him earlier from his shirt pocket and handed it to me. “558 pounds. God damn. That’s a hell of a payday.”

Reggie looked confused. “Meaning?”

“Meaning that our take today is roughly one point five million divided by the two of us.”

“Bullshit.”

“Nope. No bullshit. That’s Platinum.”

Reggie threw the van in gear and said, “Retirement sounds like a damn good plan.”

Author’s note: as always I would like to extend my appreciation for you taking the time to read my work. If you enjoyed this story and would like to see more content like it, please consider supporting by making a donation. This will allow me to continue to provide free content on this page. Thank you for your time and support and I hope you have a wonderful day.

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