Little Squirrels Can Climb Tall Trees Michael Murphy (acx book reading TXT) 📖

been earlier in the evening, I would have gotten up and changed the sheets, but as it was, I wasn’t gonna get much sleep anyway, and I knew that getting up to go to work in the morning would be a royal bitch.

“Thank you for that, dickhead,” I said aloud as I closed my eyes and tried to get some sleep.

Chapter 6

FOUR hours later my alarm went off, pulling me from a deep sleep. Waking off-cycle was never a good thing, especially when it capped off a night of too little sleep. I hauled myself into the kitchen and made a cup of extra-strong coffee—and nearly fell asleep standing at the counter while I waited for it to brew. I desperately needed caffeine, so I took a quick gulp of the hot black liquid. “Fuck,” I spit out when I tried to drink too much too fast and burned the hell out of my mouth. “Son of a fucking cunt!” I swore at the pain. Okay. So much for coffee.

I made my way into the bathroom and turned on the shower, taking care to adjust the temperature to avoid scalding myself before climbing under the water. One burn that morning was enough. When I finished my shower, I checked the coffee that I had left on the counter and found it substantially cooled off. In one long swallow, I downed the strong but cold liquid before heading off to get dressed for work.

If the day before had been one that wasn’t my most productive, then this one had promise to do that one better. Today not only would I be distracted, sore, and pissed but also sleepy. Okay. Combine, shake well, and stand back so no one got hurt. And may the Lord take pity on anyone who wandered into my way or pissed me off—it wouldn’t be a pretty picture. It wouldn’t take a lot of imagination to find images of carnage and mayhem—there would be fresh memories from up-close-and-personal experience.

On the walk to work, I must have exuded hostility and anger, because people stepped around me and steered clear all the way to the office. The same effect continued at the office, partly, I supposed, from simple word of mouth after I yelled at someone first thing in the morning.

The next casualty of my mood was the computer keyboard. Apparently I was typing a little aggressively, almost pounding the keys, and one of the letters popped off the keyboard and went flying to the floor. Rather than be mad—okay, more mad—I simply sat back and closed my eyes, muttering, “You fucking blond-haired pond scum fucking freak of nature!” as the image of Kyle flashed into my mind.

As if on cue, a moment after the image of Kyle appeared in my head, my cell phone rang. Since I didn’t recognize the number, I was half-tempted to just ignore the thing. It had gotten bad now that telemarketers had started calling cell phone numbers. It used to be that one’s cell phone was sacrosanct—you knew that if someone had your cell number, it was someone you wanted to talk with. No longer. Now there was no place that was safe from telemarketers, people conducting surveys, and people that had the latest and greatest thing to sell to you.

“Yeah,” I said by way of greeting the unsuspecting caller.

“Joseph?” I heard Kyle’s voice, a little more hesitant than I remembered.

“Yes.”

“Still mad, I see. I can’t blame you one bit. I apologize for last night. I’m so, so very sorry.”

“Kyle, this is not a good time,” I lied. “I’m in a meeting, and I can’t talk now.”

“Sorry. Call me, please, Joseph. Bye.”

Punching the Off button, I disconnected the call and tossed the poor unsuspecting phone onto the desk. There was no reason to take out my anger on the little piece of electronic wizardry. It wasn’t the phone’s fault that I had let down my guard and allowed a total stranger to stomp on my dignity and kick me in the emotional equivalent of the gonads.

“Yeah, Kyle,” I muttered. “I’ll be sure to do that.”

By lunchtime I had accomplished nothing other than scaring several people. One of my office friends appeared at my door at about noon and—having no fear whatsoever—said, “Dude! I don’t know what bug crawled up your butt last night, but do everyone a favor and get the hell out of here before someone is forced to do you bodily harm.”

There were not many people in the world who could—or would—say such a thing to a coworker. His words made me involuntarily smile a tiny bit. “So people noticed? I thought I was keeping my head down and staying out of the way.”

“Noticed? Um, give me a minute to think about this. Um, yes! And I would advise you to get out now while the coast is clear. You should know that there’s a pool underway to see who gets to come kick the shit out of you first. Now, personally I’m thinking that fat Gladys from Accounting could do quite a number on you with those great big ole platform shoes of hers. She’s got a bit of arthritis, which some people think should take her out of the running, but I still think she’s a good candidate. She’s also holding all of the money in the pool. Willie in the mailroom tossed in an extra twenty dollars so that he could put his name in twice and double his chances of getting picked.”

I looked down and sighed. “I’m sorry. I had a rough night.”

“Really? I never would have guessed.”

“I used to like you.”

“You worship the ground I walk on. I am, after all, the person who saved you from an ugly death at the hands of a coworker. Some of those folks have got more aggression built up than you’ve had this morning. Remember, Gladys is pissed off from a forty-year marriage to a bum and three of the most ungrateful children any woman ever