The first short stories I wrote were zany and cartoonish. Back then I didn’t know what being “literary” meant or what a “character arc” was. I just wanted to make people laugh. When I took writing workshops in college, suddenly I learned all these rules that made me abandon all silliness and go in a very melodramatic, serious direction. That didn’t really work either. Those stories were no fun. Nowadays I aim to balance the weirdness of my plots with realness of character. Also, I try to not go so crazy with the thesaurus and to sound a little less 19th century.
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Mr. Nipper was canned at the protractor factory for getting his hand trapped in a vending machine while reaching for a free bag of sour cream and onion chips. He had worked at the factory two years and was considered a mild-mannered, precise man with an admirable work ethic and a pleasant, unidentifiable scent — coconut, perhaps a hint of vanilla musk. His being fired was surely an embarrassment, but the most mortifying element of the situation was the fact that he had been dismissed from three previous jobs for the same reason.
Mr. Nipper blamed it on the vending machines. He was a staunch, hard-working man who came to work each day with only one thing in mind: protractors. Hundreds and hundreds of perfect protractors, to aid the masses who constantly seemed to demand more from him. He was first-class at working unsupervised and preferred to be alone to avoid distractions. The company granted him a small office with a metal desk, a bulletin board and four red thumbtacks when hired. His desk faced a glass window where one could see into a hall of ivory tiled linoleum and a gleaming vending machine containing overpriced and quite stale snack products.
Knowing his tendency towards foul play involving these snack machines, Mr. Julius Nipper avoided the hallway at all costs. For two years he rode the elevator one floor up to find a restroom away from its tantalizing glare. He took up smoking cigarettes to avoid restless ten-minute breaks in the hallway. Mr. Nipper even took responsibility and scheduled a one-on-one meeting with his supervisor Mr. Crary to ask to be moved to a different office. Afraid that details involving his shady past would cause concern in his supervisor, Mr. Nipper pretended to want the relocation due to the fluorescent lights in the hallway that “bothered his eyes.” Although entertained by his request, Mr. Crary did not grant the poor fellow his wish.
Mr. Nipper was particularly hungry on the day the desperate event took place. He had been horrified that morning to learn he was out of oatmeal, his favorite breakfast. Then he discovered his beloved goldfish Xavier had perished during the night. He exited the house in anguish, with a hollow stomach. At work that fateful day he attempted to put his worries behind him. He choked back tears when he peered through his office window at the vending machine, noticing the florescent orange glow of Goldfish brand crackers. They seemed to be taunting him, reminding him of Xavier and of his relentless appetite.
On his ten-minute recess from protractors, Mr. Nipper decided to take a gander at the vending machine. He had, after all, never dared to come closer than his office window. It was laughing at him from the hall; it begged for a closer examination. And as his polished shoes clicked on the unexplored linoleum of the hallway and the vending machine entered his vision, becoming finally tangible after so long — he knew he had to try to fish a snack or two out with his tiny hands.
Mr. Nipper had extraordinarily dainty hands, girlish hands that undertook each task with an astute precision. They were a dry white color and his fingers were thin and bony. As a child, he had successfully mastered the art of claiming coke bottles or potato chips from vending machines by probing inside them with his petite grasp. Now, as a middle-aged man, he felt his inner child screaming to be let out. After a quick left-right-left pan of the glossy hallway, Mr. Nipper thrust his hands inside and felt around. The redeeming crunch of a plastic bag impacted his palm and he removed his fist from the vending machine. He stood up and viewed his prize, a small bag of sour cream and onion chips. As he opened them and savored the first criminal bite, he felt something inside of him release. He let the memory of the empty oatmeal box and his dead fish Xavier from this morning float away and melt into an ocean of onion powder on his taste buds.
He was smiling as he took a moment in the empty hallway to survey his forbidden surroundings. Why have I been so afraid all this time? he wondered. There was not a soul around to witness his offense. The hallways were glimmering bone-white and silent in each direction. And the only office that faced the hallway was his. He glanced at his office, his familiar office, where he felt safe from the world.
He was not expecting to see his supervisor shaking his head at him from the inside of his own office. The sight so shocked the chap that his bag of chips plummeted to the spotless floor, as if in slow motion. He attempted to calm himself as he collected the chips from the tiles, one by one, and put them back in the bag. His little hands were trembling. Perhaps he didn’t see me take them, thought Mr. Nipper. Perhaps he has only been standing there a moment and is merely shaking his head because it stretches the tendons in his neck. Perhaps he thinks I purchased them with my own money.
As he entered the doorway to his office Mr. Crary informed him that he had seen everything and that Mr. Nipper was to clean his desk out immediately. He also advised him that there was no room for dishonesty in the protractor business. Mr. Nipper complied with no defense for himself, throwing the evidence of his infraction in the wastebasket. Since he was not the type of man who ate food after it hit the floor, Mr. Nipper contemplated the notion that he had been fired from the protractor factory for stealing a single sour cream and onion chip.
It was a melancholy night for Julius Nipper. Xavier’s glass bowl was empty except for a miniature ornament shaped like pirate’s treasure and he was horrified to learn he was out of hand soap. The desperate man hailed a taxi to the grocery store, where he purchased the least expensive bottle of hand soap and a small bag of sour cream and onion chips. Upon leaving the store, he became aware that his recent purchase of hand soap did not include moisturizer — an essential for his bantam hands, which chapped so easily. Mr. Nipper exchanged his soap and ventured home, wondering how he was to spend his days now that his life was free from protractors, and how he might never get a job again because of his peculiar recreation involving vending machines.
Back in his apartment, Mr. Nipper nestled himself into an overstuffed chair and flipped on the television — a rare event for such an industrious man. He hardly felt like himself as he watched the shoddy talk show the channel happened to be on, tasting the bold and daring flavor of his chips. They did not taste near as delicious as that single prohibited chip did in the hallway of the protractor factory. Mr. Nipper was a man who did not believe in remote control devices, and therefore was stuck witnessing an interview with a mother who sued her own son for mopping the kitchen floor.
“I gone slip an’ fell and bruised my good hip,” explained the frizzy-haired, destitute woman on TV. “I an American, I done sick an’ tired of people walkin’ all over me. I got me a lawyer and won myself a big case.”
It was so dreadful Mr. Nipper got up and the turned the television off again. He returned to his chair, wondering why anyone could sue for anything in his country and get millions of dollars to compensate while he — an honest, tireless man — was unemployed once more because of a meaningless snack product. It didn’t seem fair. Why couldn’t he sue the protractor factory, then, and win a ton of money?
The question arose sarcastically and manifested sincerely. After a good night’s sleep with dreams involving moneybags and rows of vending machines, Mr. Nipper decided to call and make an appointment with a good lawyer.
His name was Jeremiah Winn, a hotshot fast-talking man in a sharp black suit and a magenta tie who emanated a virile scent — Old Spice, possibly some higher-priced Calvin Klein aftershave. He was intrigued by Mr. Nipper’s story, especially the part regarding Mr. Nipper’s attempt to have his office relocated to a different area and the fact that Mr. Crary had not granted his wish.
Mr. Nipper drew Mr. Winn a map to explain his office location and the position of the vending machine. He was interviewed on tape and eventually in person by a team of lawyers hired by the protractor factory. Mr. Winn was always by Mr. Nipper’s side — and in private, he promised that Mr. Nipper would never have to work again once the case was won. You’ll have a whole mansion full of vending machines to steal from when we’re finished with those protractor bastards, he promised.
Almost six months after the crucial event took place at the protractor factory, Mr. Nipper went to court, suing the protractor factory for Pain and Anguish. It took three months before the case was decided– Mr. Nipper had sold every item he owned, including his old black-and-white television and his empty fishbowl, to pay his lawyer. In fact, Mr. Nipper had stooped to dining in soup kitchens and sleeping on cots at the Salvation Army after vending his own home in hopes that his case would pan out in his favor and transform his rags to riches.
The judge finally announced that he found the plaintiff Julius Nipper to be owed sixteen million dollars by the protractor factory for Pain and Anguish. Mr. Winn hugged Mr. Nipper and shook his fist in the air and it was a glorious day. Mr. Nipper was the richest man he had ever known; he purchased an elegant Spanish-style mansion with a pool and a tennis court. He hired a maid named Edna and a butler and chauffeur, both named Warren. Big Warren was the amiable butler — large in size and in heart. Little Warren was the surly fellow who drove Mr. Nipper’s newly acquired Rolls Royce.
Mr. Nipper designated an entire wing of his mansion to vending machines. There were fifty-six vending machines altogether, some containing classic items such as chips or candy — others containing novelty items such as penny whistles or Chinese finger traps, jaw harps or those sponges that grow when you put them in water. Mr. Nipper’s new pastime included polishing these machines and refilling them when needed.
Although rich and fabulously pampered, Mr. Nipper still felt a sense of emptiness due to unemployment. He would often give Edna or Big Warren the day off and take over cleaning duties to fill the time. This made Little Warren angry and he took to smoking cigars in Mr. Nipper’s Rolls Royce in attempts to anger him. Mr. Nipper simply took up smoking cigars as well, thinking it a social activity that went along with riding through the countryside.
On an outing Mr. Nipper asked Little Warren to drive by the old protractor factory. He hadn’t seen it in ages, since before his awesome luck had struck gold. Little Warren, who was now accustomed to smoking two cigars at once, raised his eyebrows with a grunt and turned the car up Winter Avenue, the seemingly endless road that led to the protractor factory, alone and away from the town.
While passing the many pine trees and rolling green hills Mr. Nipper recalled his working days fondly. He missed traveling up the road each day, through the changing seasons and the road construction — up the windy lane to the gated factory, which now had rust festering over the chain links.
“Stop the car!” shouted Mr. Nipper. Little Warren slammed the brakes and dropped one of his lit cigars. As the cantankerous chauffer groaned and fished around his corpulent feet to locate it, Mr. Nipper jumped out of the car and sprinted to the fence, staring at a sign that read, OUT OF BUSINESS and at another below it, which read FOR SALE.
Mr. Nipper threw back his head and roared in laughter. “For one chip!” he shouted. “One measly chip and I put you out of business!” For the first time the hilarity of the entire situation was indisputable. He leapt into the car, where Little Warren was currently puffing a third cigar.
“Are you smoking three cigars at once now?”
Little Warren trumpeted a strange sound, possibly a belch or some other biological eruption in response.
“I really think you should cut down,” advised Mr. Nipper.
“I want a day off,” snapped Little Warren. “I’ve got a life of my own, you know.”
“Drive me back to the mansion — or no, hold that thought. First drive me to my bank. I am going to buy this factory back myself. I’ve been searching for meaning and now I’ve found it — the Julius Nipper Protractor Corporation!”
Little Warren was silent, lighting his fourth cigar and puffing on the other three, which were woven strategically between the fingers of his left hand. He obeyed Mr. Nipper’s command, but made a mental note to see a lawyer the next day. There was no reason why Little Warren couldn’t make a fortune off of Mr. Nipper’s blatant disregard for state labor laws.