Incinerator Boy


Chapter 3

Before there were Walmarts, Targets, and K-Mart blue light specials, there were the TG&Ys, McCrorys, and Woolcos, a category of retail outlets otherwise known as discount department stores. And like their successors, these early versions received goods in pretty much the same fashion – in large eighteen-wheelers stuffed with pallets of boxes. The trucks are unloaded, the pallets emptied, the boxes opened, and the shelves restocked. It’s the never-ending cycle of life inside a large retail outlet. Day in and day out. It never ends, and it never differs.
But, unlike their successors, where the sea of cardboard boxes and other trash is compacted, strapped, and then shipped off to a recycling center, the predecessors, the original stores, did things a little differently. They simply burned everything - and I do mean everything - in large, in-store incinerators. The refuge was fed into these infernos a piece or a box at a time, and usually, by some minimally paid high school student of legal working age.
I should know.
Because that’s where I enter the story, the lowly paid teenager still in high school who was lucky enough to land a first job. A first job that not only funded my drug consumption, but also, my appetite for dating some disapproving father’s teenage daughter as well.
The incinerator boy. That’s me.
I was initially hired as part of the Christmas season’s temporary increase in workforce, but did well enough to be kept on once the holidays were over, and I was made a regular, full-time employee.
Now, as far as first jobs go, it wasn’t that bad. I could have done worse, I suppose, like my friend, Moon Dog, who was hired on shortly after I was as the buggy boy. And being the buggy boy meant poor Moon froze in the winter, melted in the summer, and stayed drenched and miserable when it rained.
But he didn’t seem to care. Nothing ever seemed to faze ‘Moon Man’ (as I called him), a fact I attribute to his chronic and excessive use of drugs. Not that I have room to talk, mind you, but it has been my own personal experience that there is no problem that life can straddle you with that enough drugs can’t make go away, or, at a minimum, seem very unimportant.
And make no mistake, there was no shortage of problems in Moon Dog’s life. I mean, c’mon. What kind of parents name their kid ‘Moon Dog’, for Christ’s sake?
Jus’ kiddin’ That’s the name we gave him, which only makes the facts of his life even worse when you consider what kind of friends you must have that would do something like that–name you ‘Moon Dog’. If it were your parents, you could always blame it on the LSD epidemic of the sixties, but when it’s your good friends that do something like that, you gotta wonder if these aren’t the same kind of people who would let you get high and drive.
And sadly enough, we were. In fact, that was the expectation.
Looking back, I sometimes wonder how any of us ever made it to adulthood. But then I remember that some of us didn’t.
But back to Moon Dog…

Chapter 4

Now, as far as best friends go, Moon was the best. I loved this guy. Still, like the rest of us, he was no stranger to faults and shortcomings. Maybe a little more so than the rest of us. Ok, a lot more.
He was much too scrawny, anemic in appearance, and was one of those kids who had a bad complexion from acne that had run amok. You know the kind: red face with the texture of a lunar landscape? Which, I guess, is where he got the first part of his name, Moon. The second part, Dog, I can only imagine was added because of his hair - golden yellow, straight as a board, and very, very coarse. To the point that it resembled straw, almost. And always greasy. It was the kind of hair I would ordinarily consider comb-resistant, but the guy managed to keep it groomed somehow. How, I have no idea. Also, he wore his hair just long enough to where it resembled a WWII Nazi helmet. It had about the same shape.
Anyway, I think it’s fair to say that Moon’s hair was not one of his better features. In fact, it looked so bad I often wondered if he wouldn’t have been better off shaving his head. But he’d never hear that from me. Not sober, anyway.
So, in view of the facts, I imagine that being Mark Kadowitz (Moon’s real name) required substantial use of drugs, and, in significant quantities. Which, in all honesty, was probably the only reason he needed a job - to cover costs.
You have to understand that before hiring on at Woolco, Moon’s previous occupation, or ‘goal’ in life, rather, was to sell more drugs than he consumed. But that was a losing proposition from the start, and that failure led him to me. And I, in turn, led him to Woolco’s personnel manager, who promptly hired him - hired him based on my recommendation, no less.
Yeah, that’s what I said. But what was I gonna do? Moon was my friend. One of ill repute, maybe, but back then, weren’t we all?
So anyway, on a more positive note, I always viewed Moon working for Woolco as his way of turning legit. Something I considered a definite improvement to an otherwise delinquent life, a life I all too often saw as devoid of any hope for the future - or present, for that matter. But the really good thing about Moon working at Woolco is that with him around, I was always guaranteed to have a friend to talk to during breaks. And these breaks with Moon usually proved to be the highlight of my day.
You see, Mark was not without redeeming qualities. Mostly, but not completely. For one thing, Moon Dog always had - or had ‘access’ to - the best drugs. Big bonus. Really big. But more importantly, he was the most naturally funny person I’d ever met, or for that matter, have since known. The guy was hilarious. So much so that you’d always have to be careful when drinking liquids around him. To do so would be to run the risk of shooting it out through your nose as a result of some off-the-wall remark he would unexpectedly make. Like the time Lisa Nunez asked him if he would take her to the upcoming ZZ Top concert. It went something like this…


 *   *   *   *   *   *   *


“Whoa! That was kinda unexpected, Lisa. I dunno. I had something planned for that evening”.
“Oh yeah, like what?”
She manages to say this between loud, obnoxious gum smacks. Moon replies…
“Well, I was planning on pulling my eyelids off with a pair of pliers that night. How cool would that be?!”
He pulls his eyelids up with his index fingers as if to preview the look for her…
“You’re such an asshole!”
She belts this out as that suitcase she calls a purse comes around and plants itself firmly on the side of Moon’s head…
“I suggest you learn to suck your own dick, Zit-head!”
And with that, she spins on her heels and bolts down the school corridor at a very, very insulted pace.
Ouch. Even I, standing at a safe distance, felt that one. But Moon wasn’t done. He fires his next salvo…
“Aww, c’mon, Lisa! I was just kiddin’! It was your eyelids I was gonna pull off!”
But her only reaction was to extend an arm upward and flip him off as the clicking sound of her heels faded down the school corridor.
But Moon, being the kinda guy he is, wasn’t taking this lying down. Male pride was at stake here…
“And another thing! Not my fault you don’t need birth control! Try hanging some of those little pine tree air fresheners on your panties. You can put them next to the fly strips!”
But it was too late. She was well out of range of Moon’s verbal assault, as well as his dating options for good.
I can’t believe this guy sometimes. I tell him…
“Damn, she’s right! You can be a real asshole sometimes, Moon. Was that really necessary?”
“C’mon! You’re not going to tell me you bought into all that?”
“Bought into what, for Christ’s sake?”
 “Look, Lisa is like the ugliest girl in school, is she not?”
“Yeah, I guess. So, what’s your point?”
“The point is this, my naïve friend. She’s a fug (fucking ugly), which means her life is a done deal. She’s got ‘future trailer trash’ written all over her, and because misery loves company, she’s wanting to take someone with her down that road of no hope. So why me? What did I ever do to that big-headed, Gumby-looking bitch?”
“Dude, a blow job is a blow job. You’re not thinking about this with the right head!”.
I feed change into a nearby drink machine and press Dr. Pepper, my favorite, while Moon tries to explain his social retardation to me…
“No, man, you just don’t get it.”
“Get what?”
“I have the future of my poor, low-mileage penis to consider.”
“Jesus, Moon! What the hell are you talking about?”
I pop the top and take a swig from the ice-cold, twelve-ounce can. Moon continues…
“OK, this is how it works. If so much as one person finds out I did Lisa, then not even the second ugliest girl at school will lower her standards to date me. And, because I’m already feeding from the bottom of the pussy pool, I have no place to go. I might as well date my right hand.”
“Yeah, so what’s the big deal? You do that already.”, I said as I drew in another large gulp…
“Well, I did. Until I caught it cheating on me.”
That did it. He got me again. Three ounces of ice-cold Dr. Pepper through my nose. Fuck!
“Damn it, Moon! Look what you made me do!”
I began wiping my face with my shirttail and continued the complaint…
“I shoulda known better! You’d think I’d learn by now! Fuck!”
And then something occurred to me…
“Wait. How would anyone find out? I mean, I wouldn’t tell, and I know for damn sure you wouldn’t, so how does that happen?”
“Sheez. You need to get out more. Lisa, she tells.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah. She tells. Not directly. That’d be too trashy, even for her. No, she leaks it out. Makes it look like an accident.”
“How?”
“Easy. She forges a love note from me to her, saying how crazy I am about her, and what a great piece of ass I think she is. That kind of thing. Then, she folds it up all nice, neat, and small, and drops it on the girl’s bathroom floor at school. Best way to make something public knowledge. Better than jungle drums. Better than CNN, even.”
“But why would she do that?”
“Simple. It ups her stock value. Nothing helps the selling price of a used car like another potential buyer, someone else interested in it.”
“Hmmm. Clever girl. Butt ugly, but clever.”
“Yeah. Look, don’t get me wrong. She’s gonna make some abusive, alcoholic, welfare loser a good wife one day, but it ain’t gonna be me. I have my standards, you know.”
“Standards? Since when do you have standards?”
“Don’t look at me like that! I’ve got ‘em! Just because they’re really low doesn’t mean I don’t have any!” 
He pauses, then…
”Sheez! Who died and made you Mr. Manners, anyway?”
Got to admit, you couldn’t argue with the guy’s logic. Still, at sixteen, a warm, wet, lipstick-lined mouth on the end of your erection is a nice thing to have going for you.
“You’re a better man than me, Gunga Din”, I said as we began to make our way home, me still wiping Dr. Pepper off my face. Moon replies…
“Look, you get through your awkward teenage years your way, and I’ll get through mine…well, somehow. You’ll see, fucking Manner Man. Jeez!”
And with that, we began the long walk home together, side by side. All the while, Moon doing that eyelid thing as if he was seriously considering it.
And he probably was.


*   *   *   *   *   *   *


And that was my friend, Moon Dog.
For better or worse.
Either way, he was my friend.


…and the world continues to spin, and tomorrow is a brand-new day.


Chapter 5

(sigh)
As entertaining as he was, Moon Dog’s tenure at Woolco was simply not to be. Seems that some people simply don’t have the appreciation for his humor and drug use that I do – or did. One such person being Mr. Robinson, the store manager. A person Moon once described as ‘Porky-the-Pig with hair’, not realizing that the man was standing directly behind him when he made the remark. But, as uncanny as Moon Dog’s description of the boss was, that’s not what got him fired. Not at all. What did the Moon Man in was one of the Christmas season’s hottest commodities – Mattel’s ‘Legends of the West’ action figure dolls. In particular, the Jane West doll, to be exact.
Here’s what happened…

 *   *   *   *   *   *   *

It was the height of the Christmas season, and I couldn’t burn boxes fast enough. I would eliminate one mountain of boxes, and two more would take its place, or so it seemed.
The majority of boxes were empty, but a few contained merchandise that had been deemed unsuitable for sale. These were items that fell into the retail business category of ‘breakage’: items damaged during shipping; demo units that no longer functioned; or items returned by the customer, and the department manager was simply too lazy to return them to the manufacturer for a refund. Basically, the store’s garbage. The things no longer wanted or cared about. And to these items, I represented the end of the line. When a broken toaster or a rocking horse with only three legs saw me, they knew their end was at hand and that their time in this world had finally run out. So, if you were a broken toy or appliance, I was the one guy you never wanted to meet. I was, after all, the incinerator boy, boss of Toy Hell.
And they all knew who I was, the broken toys, the appliances, defective or irregular clothing items, and they had all heard the stories. At some point, they had all seen the boxes containing their friends carted off. So yeah, they knew the score, and no matter how hard they tried to stand on the floor, or sit on the shelf and pretend to be like all the other stuff, the stuff that did work, stuff people actually wanted, they knew they were different. They knew that it was just a matter of time before they, too, were found out and would take that one final trip through the big, double-swinging doors, the ones that say ‘Employees Only’, on their way to their appointment with…
…me.
They would shudder in fear, they would, in the darkness, until the box flaps would open and my cold, emotionless face would peer down upon them, staring each one in the eye as I pass final judgment on their crimes against the consuming public. And, all of this happening, no less, to the terrifying background roar of the incinerator’s inferno, them knowing all the while that it was their next stop
For them, this was it. The end. Sure, they would beg for mercy or ask for a second chance and stuff, but the fact was, their fate was a forgone conclusion. The verdict was rendered the instant the department manager put them in a box and brought them to me. So, my hands were tied here. All I could do was carry out the sentence. After all, it’s my job. It’s what I get paid for.
And that’s what they don’t understand – that once they reached the incinerator room, it was pretty much a done deal. Game over. That there would be no appeals here today, no last-minute pardons granted. Because here, in Toy Hell, there are no innocent souls. No one gets out of here alive, and for sure, no one goes to Heaven.
Not on my watch.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *
 
Today, it’s a plastic Playskool bowling pin set for children ages six through twelve that retails for ten dollars and ninety-nine cents, aisle thirteen. It’s marked for incineration due to the fact that it’s missing two pins, the green and the orange. And I find this odd. Couldn’t be shoplifting. What would some kid do with only two pins? And even if it was someone who wanted to practice juggling, wouldn’t he at least need three?
No. There was something else at play here, something else to this mystery. Something deeper, like, maybe it was a young pin couple shunned by the rest of the set who found inter-color relationships unacceptable in their little bowling society. Maybe that’s it. Would make sense - that the two ran away, thinking perhaps they could make it to another store whose bowling sets had more liberal views.
Who knows what the real story is?
But this bothered me, the missing pins. To the point that I would keep a constant watch for the two as I made my way through the store, sensing all the while that they were somehow still here. Still in the store, hiding and relocating as necessary. Moving only at night and wearing black socks with eye holes cut out. I would imagine them watching me, peering at me as I pass, from beneath a sofa in the furniture department, maybe…
“Get back, Delores! It’s him, for god’s sake. The Incinerator Boy!”
“Oh my! Such an evil man! What did we ever do to him?”
“It’s not like that. It’s nothing personal. It’s his job.”
“He could quit and find another!”
“No, he can’t. He’s a teenage drug user, which means that his judgment is impaired, and is therefore incapable of making decisions that would remove him from an environment he finds comfortable and feels secure in. The devil you know versus the devil you don’t. I read that somewhere when we were living in the Book and Magazine aisle. Some self-help book.”
 “Oh, Ralph! You’re so smart!”
He grins and gives her a wink…
“Yep, us green pins always are.”
They kiss and cuddle as I walk past them, completely unaware of their presence, as well as the green pin’s assessment of me.
And I can understand their fear, I can. In fact, I sometimes wonder what it must be like from their perspective. Suddenly landing in a bed of red-hot embers, my cold, indifferent face bathed in an orange glow being the last thing they see as the massive iron door of the incinerator closes with a final, heavy thud, their fate sealed as they are forever removed from the world of the still-wanted and useful.
Maybe I should feel bad about what I do. Maybe, but I don’t. I’ve grown numb to it all, I suppose. Maybe in the same way EMTs become numb to grizzly car accident scenes. Something like that.
(sigh)
In time, it all becomes just part of the job.