The Man

Characters:

Milo: Milo is a student at the University of College. He takes school seriously, and rarely steps outside his box. He lives alone in a four-person apartment, and only uses one bedroom and the kitchen. The living room is bland and lacking furniture. The other three bedrooms have the doors wide open and nothing but dust behind them. He had three roommates, for three years. They were friends. They all left and moved into a three-person apartment without him. They were friends. Milo is alone.

The Man: The Man is… well… The Man. With an extremely hard, almost over the top, Hispanic accent, The Man’s voice dominates any room he occupies. He never stutters. His words are, The Words. The Man carries a .45mm in the waistband of his underwear at all times. He has a shiny blue ring on the middle finger of his left hand. Sometimes he gives people as he calls it, “The Blue Yay”. The man has a crazy maniacal laugh that sounds almost as if he were dying of a stroke. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, The Man spent 6 years in prison after showing inappropriate parts of himself to an old lady and a few kids at a park. He is, a registered sex offender. He is, The Man.

The Guy: The Guy operates the telephone for The Man. Sure The Man has tons of people that do tons of stuff for him. For instance, This Dude, he’s in charge of the cars, or This Person, who’s in charge of cleaning The Man’s mansion. These people do have genuine names, but The Man forgot them long ago. And to keep from being embarrassed, he calls these people by the names he made for them. You ever refer to yourself as your birthname, well, you might just end up like The Dead Guy, who well… That’s all I’ll say about that.

The Story:

Milo is out walking from his last class of the day to his 8-12 job. You see, Milo is a hard worker. Classes from 8-7, and a job from 8-12, leaves milo barely any time to eat. So every day, on the way to his 8-12 job, he stops by Joe’s Sammy Shop, where he always grabs a #2 Sammy with lettuce, mustard, ham, and no tomatoes. The workers at Joe’s Sammy Shop then wrap the sandwich and place it in a cardboard box. From there they wrap the box in brown wrapping paper and tie a nice bow on top with a piece of thin brown string. They say it adds a nice touch.

Holding the box wrapped in brown paper in his left hand, Milo turns the corner, now about a block away from his job, and soon to pass “We Tried”, which is, as Milo believes, possibly the worst named barbershop on the planet. Smocking at the sign, he looks away from the shop and turns to face his destiny for the next four hours: his job at “The Place”, the only grocery store in town. Is working at The Place good for a guy Milo’s age? Not sure. It’s just a place. The Place is ultimately... just a plac-

“AYE”

Milo turns to see The Man furiously walking out of the barbershop, eyes wide and crazy. The tall lanky man makes his way across the street all the while looking at Milo as if he had killed one of his friends.

“AYE YOUUUUU…” he pauses. “IT WA YOU?” The Man exclaims in disbelief “YOU TOOK EH?” The Man yells as he nods his head.

The Man makes his way to the middle of the street.

“Ohhhhh, you think eh sooo funny to play the games huh? You really think you can play the games weh me?”

The Man tilts his head back and laughs maniacally with three hard puffs of breath. The instant he releases his final puff of breath, he reaches into the back of his pants and pulls out his .45mm. He aims it at Milo,

“WAIT” Milo screams.

The Man takes a shot. The bullet hits a metal pole about three feet away from Milo, not even close. Milo freaks out and drops the box wrapped in brown paper on the sidewalk.

“Hey, what is going on??” Milo shouts as he shies away from the gun being aimed at his face.

The Man approaches the box, now lying on the ground, and releases the entire mag into the box. BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG.

“YOU DON PLAY THE GAMES WEH ME”

The Man fires the last round and looks back at Milo with a craze in his eyes. He sticks his tongue out and licks his lips real big as he smirks.

“Who laughing now huh? You no laugh now that I went deh bang bang huh?”

The Man slowly turns from facing Milo, to facing the box. He slowly unwraps and opens the box… His eyes grow wide with shock. Staring face to face with Milo’s poor sandwich, The Man gasps.

“It wa naugh in the bo-” The Man stands, and backs away from the box. He turns and faces Milo.

“Eh wa naugh you?”

They stare eye to eye for a solid five seconds as The Man figures out what to do. Moving, hips first, the tall lanky man moves past Milo in a strange cocky stance. He knows he messed up, but he’ll never show it. Once about five feet away from Milo, still facing the opposite direction of him, he raises the middle finger of his left hand, encrusted with a beautiful blue gemmed ring, and says “Take deh Blue Yay”, as his final word of goodbye and releases a single “HA” with his head cocked back as he walks away from the warzone he just created.

Milo, still shaking from the shellshock of the situation that just unfolded in front of him, slumps down to the floor for a moment. What on earth was up with that guy? What just happened?!

After a few moments, Milo gathers himself and stands back up. He picks up the remains of his bullet-infested sandwich and begins to walk towards his job again when out of the corner of his eye, he notices yet another brown paper-covered box positioned behind an old bike, barely out of plain sight. Milo’s heart began to pound. He could feel his heartbeat in his ears. His eyes began to check his surroundings, and finally, his hands loosened as he dropped his crappy sandwich and ran as fast as he could, picking up the suspicious brown paper-covered box on the way, the one The Man surely must have been after. Milo forgot about his job and ran straight home.

Milo slams the door to his apartment, runs straight into his room, grabs a pocket knife, flips it open, and moves his arm in to tear the paper around the box. Just then, the telephone rings.

This wasn’t just any telephone. This was an old rotary-style phone. Why Milo had this in his apartment in 2021 you ask? Maybe, this detail just needed to be in the story, and there’s no other reason... Maybe...

Milo stares at the ringing phone as it vibrates back and forth. With one quick grab, he answers the phone with, “Uhm hello?” in a quivering voice.

“Ahh Milo, thank you for answering” responds a calm and collected seemingly older man.

“Who is this?” Milo exclaims.

“Who am I? Well, Milo... I’m The Guy.”

“You’re... The Guy?”

“That’s right, I’m The Guy. And I just have to say, the way you were able to fool The Man today was really a sight to see. In all honesty, I’m surprised you actually fooled him.”

“Wait, who’s The Man?”

“You really don’t remember The Man? The Man shot your sandwich-”

“Oh you mean The Guy I saw-”

“I’m The Guy...”

An awkward silence plays out.

“...You’re the guy who shot my sandwich?”

“No. I’m The Guy.”

“So you are the guy that-”

“Yes, I’m The Guy.”

“I’m sorry... I am so confused right now... Can you tell me what is going on here? I mean This Dude came out of nowhere and shot my sandwich-”

“This Dude did not shoot your sandwich.”

“I know you didn’t shoot my sandwich, you’ve already said that-”

“This Dude is in charge of the cars.”

“This Dude… what is going o-”

“The Guy, I’m The Guy. Please stop calling me This Dude. The Man takes that very seriously.”

“What is up with this dude?”

“What did I just say! DO NOT CALL ME THIS DUDE”

It gets extremely quiet.

“I’m- I’m sorry for losing my temper… The Man will… he’ll hurt me… so please don’t... call me This Dude anymore ok?”

Milo takes a moment in an attempt to comprehend his current situation. He sighs, “Ok Man.”

“I am not The Ma-”

“CAN YOU PLEASE JUST SHUT UP AND TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?” Milo screams.

“Oh yes, so sorry, got lost in the names, I almost completely forgot to tell you that The Man is on his wa-”

BOOM. Milo’s front door flies across his living room. The high pitched almost stroke-like laugh fills Milo’s apartment, as footsteps approach Milo’s bedroom. Milo stands up straight. In shock, and still holding the rotary phone in his hand, Milo stares The Man in the eyes.

“Who you on deh phone weh huh?”

“Oh me?” Milo looks down at the phone in his hand. He quickly hangs it up. “It was just… The Guy”.

“The Guy jus now call you?” The Man tilts his head back, “HA.” The Man turns around to talk to someone as if he has a posse behind him. He doesn’t… “Y0u hear dis? The Guy wah late…” He lets out a long sigh... He slowly shakes his head. “He Dead.”

“Uhhm, you mean you’re gonna kil-”

“Alrigh, I really haugh to get goin alrigh? Just give deh box to me, and it’ll be all over okey?”

“Well, what’s in the box-” Milo attempts to question.

“YOU WANNA DO THIS DEH HARD WHEY?” The Man has whipped out his .45mm and now has it aimed at Milo.

“Uhhh NO! Please! Take it!” Milo shrieks as he shakily hands the box over to The Man. The Man takes the box, sniffs it like a rat, nods, and tilts his head back releasing his infamous evil laugh, ended by a coughing fit after choking on his own spit. He takes a moment, as Milo just stares.

He straightens himself up swiftly, and moving hips first, the tall lanky man moves out the door into the main room in a strange cocky stance. Raising the middle finger of his left hand, encrusted with a beautiful blue gemmed ring, The Man says “Take deh Blue Yay”, and releases a final “HA” with his head cocked back as he walks out the front door and down the hall.

Milo never saw or heard from The Man again.