She looked at him like a deer in headlights might look at someone if it had human eyes. Hamish had interviewed a million girls like her for a job, a billion probably, maybe fewer, but still every time he was surprised that they managed to get into his office. He wasn’t hiring.
The girl wiped the security guard’s blood on her skirt and hiked it up a bit to show Hamish a glimpse of her knees and penis. Sigh, Hamish said aloud instead of sighing. He knew the drill. Girl from Bumfucksville, Manhattan with a winning smile and a folder full of Naruto fanart wants to be a star. Greases a few palms, offers to clean up the grease for a price, and before you know it she’s fucked her way so high up the Empire State you’re bringing her the Alka Seltzer. Entitled. Thinks just ‘cause she got her period before the other girls at school that every door’s gonna open for her even though automatic doors haven’t been invented yet and she’s got a thumb that looks like a toe.
“So, you want to be in pictures,” Hamish muttered under his breath to practice what he was going to say. “Excuse me?” She’d heard him, and now he was embarrassed. Hamish looked out the window and spat at his reflection. The window was open, and the window cleaner looked really offended. He spun his chair around so he was facing the girl and spun around a second time for fun. “The pictures, toots. The silver screen.”
“Oh, duh. Movies, yeah. Just call them movies.”
He took a bite of his cigarette. Truth is this girl wasn’t half bad. Hair like shiny rope, nostrils you could fit a fist into, extra long tits, and an enormous, freakish mouth. Like her mouth was for real so big. He sat there looking at her for ten, fifteen minutes, and decided that he’d give her the job after all. “OK, this is a paper mill. We make paper. Not movies. Sorry.” He tipped her a tootsie roll wrapper for her time, and just like that, she was gone.
“Fuck.” Another day, another dollar in the swear jar.
Hamish stared out the window, and thought about really sad things, like global warming and the fact that the girl had left. She was a rare dame: a desert flower, and flowers don’t just grow on trees. And now she was dead, probably. “Hi, excuse me,” she said, alively. “Can you unlock the door?” Hamish got up from his chair, and pushed her out the window. She was dead for real this time, and he could be sad again. “Hey, sorry.” Her again, first floor office. “Do you validate parking?” He threw his paperweight at her. Sad.
Hamish drove back home for what felt like years. Everything was bad. He didn’t love his wife half as much as he loved money, and, oh man, money got him real hard. Dumb broad didn’t even know he was sleeping with her dad, and they’d been doing it in the bunk above her for years since he’d died. Everything stank. Hamish’s breath smelled like piss even though he’d barely had any, and his car reeked of the dead rat that was trapped in the hose he used to pipe exhaust into the cabin. He’d been going in circles on the same roundabout for two hours.
Suddenly, a deer came on the road. It looked at Hamish like a callback to the girl from the beginning of the piece. Hamish stared, and the deer stared back, an infinity in its eyes, an all-loving expanse, and for a second, everything was in harmony. And then the deer smashed through the windshield and impaled Hamish through the chest with its antlers and basically shredded his innards and got blood all over his brand new car and it was really gross.
