Gary D. Compton lives in the eastern most region of Kentucky. He has earned paychecks as fast food worker, coal lab technician, martial arts teacher, exterminator, carpenter, store clerk, child care worker, parole officer and musician. 

Mattressback (February 20, 2009. Issue 15.)

I ran into this old friend of mine, just imagine. Imagine a man wearing a seventy-five thousand dollar watch and throwback loafers. He looked like Tom Jode at the end of the rainbow.

I envied everything about him; his disheveled appearance, his desire to discover. I envied his carelessness.

For this old friend, money was just a platform. I was embarrassed when he asked what I had been up to. I had dug a hole, pushed in the red clay sod and patted it level. It was buried and my morning was complete. I spoke of my family. I used them as a shield.

Imagine the things I didn't tell him.

I get up everyday and perform the same ritual to my gods of Shelter and Income. It is a hard boiled egg, a piece of stale toast and a pint of the cheapest shit whiskey pocket change can buy. I cannot afford to piss off Income. His retribution is hard biting.

My day is multitasking. My day is fake smiles. I hate everyone including me. I have a nice home, car and a wife with an ass you can bounce a quarter off of. Life should be good, but truth is, I'm a pussy.

I plan ahead of time what to say, how to mediate and pacify people. We all do. I promise myself the next person I have to pull on a smile for I will tell to go fuck themselves. I will tell them to have a nice day, you fudge eating puke. Maybe introduce myself as R. Lee Emry and explain that we all muddle through life with our fake pleasantries. We should all just bend over and have our paychecks deposited directly up the ass.

Just imagine if I told my old friend with the comfortable skin that I am a whore. We are all whores. Some beg, mouths open, on their knees for success while others just give a hand job for it. Either way life fucks us all. Some return the favor face down and pillow-biting while others wad the sheets around their hands and embrace it face up.

There is a name for people like that.