Tyler's Teachings

He was everything I thought I wanted to be, and more. Looking at him felt like staring into a mirror- one whose reflection shifted your style into a sly, Brad-Pitt-type, smooth criminal. From our first meeting, in the bathroom of a Home Depot, one Friday morning, he reminded me of someone I had always known, someone with whom I may have grown up and long forgotten, though I never could extract the memory of whom he might have been.

“The name’s Tyler,” he said to me, that first day, leaning against the sink next to the one in which I was washing my hands, “you here for some lumber too?”

“Yeah,” I told him, “shit’s stupid, for real. Been here everyday this week getting a little of this and a little of that. I’m about over coming here for the same job over, and over, again. My boss needs to get his shit together. It’s gotten really fucking old.”

“Just quit,” he told me.

I chuckled then said, “I wish I could. That would be nice.”

“You can.” The man slid over, beside me, then said, “Fuck it. You don’t need that job. It’s just a false construct, feeding you lies, keeping you chained as a modern-day slave, and as your body dwindles away day-by-day, your fat fucking boss is sitting on his ass, just waiting for a reason to replace you for someone he can pay less. Don’t even call him, just leave.”

“Man,” I said, “that sounds so good, for real. I wish I could just quit and still live. I fucking hate working.”

“You can. I’ve got a place we can stay. I’ll let you slide on rent until you find your way and figure it all out.” The man pulled a phone out of his pocket and handed it to me, saying, “Call him from my phone. Let him know you’re done being his slave. You’re gonna make your own path in life from now on, build your own future.”

I took his phone and dialed my boss’s number. My boss answered, almost instantly, and asked me what I wanted. He didn’t even answer me when I asked him how he already knew it was me, being as I called him from a stranger’s phone. He asked me again what I wanted then waited for my response.

“I want to tell you to go fuck yourself. You’re an incompetent piece of shit, who’s running your company straight to the ground. I’m gonna make my own way. Find yourself another slave.” Before I hung up in the middle of his yells, I cut him off and said, “and I’m gonna fuck your wife.”

Tyler’s nodding head pulled a smile around the man’s chin, telling me, “Good job. Now, let’s get the fuck out of here.”

I followed Tyler out of the bathroom and walked behind him as he strolled to the section of the store with the lumber, before climbing to the top of shelves that held sheets of plywood. He pulled a razor knife from his jeans, cutting straps holding a bundle of half-inch plywood, then threw all fifty sheets onto the floor below. The ground shook each time a sheet smacked it, vibrating the air around the store as a loud crack flew out over, and over, again, until he was standing on a pallet that once held the wood, looking at a crowd gathered and cheering him on. Workers screamed for him to get down, but all he did was stand there and shoot a stream of urine as far as he could, all over the wood, on the floor, on some people. There were even men who had decided to run through it as a form of celebration.

All I could do was watch Tyler climb back down, halfway, then lunge himself off the metal shelves far enough to land away from any worker trying to grab him as he ran out of the sliding doors at the entrance. Some people were still clapping, others were shaking their heads. I saw one older lady holding her hands over her young grandson’s eyes when I passed her, and the registers, before walking out the same doors through which Tyler had just ran.

I walked straight to my beat-up, king cab, black Dodge Ram 1500 and hopped in, wishing I hadn’t just quit my job- especially not the way I had just done so- then shook my head as I stuck the key in the ignition and turned it. I should have just chosen to walk the career path that led me towards fixing eighteen-wheelers, instead of fixing houses. All the people who were just inside were shoulder-to-shoulder, lined in front of the store, staring at me as I drove off. They must have seen me walking around with that crazy mother fucker, Tyler.

The yellow light at the intersection I was coming to turned red when Tyler popped his short, shaggy blonde hair up, peeking over the passenger’s seat and laughed, telling me to push the gas pedal to the floorboard. I obliged.

He kept chuckling, saying, “That was fucking crazy, wasn’t it? You see their faces when I started pissing everywhere? And the people running through it? They fucking loved it.” He climbed over the chair then said, “We’re gonna go to my house first. Take this next left.”

I made the turn then said, “So, I really am going to have to crash at your spot. I’m already six months behind on rent and now I don’t even have a job.”

“I know,” he said, “everything’s good. Take this right.”

“I’ve been down this road before,” I said, “we’re actually doing a job out this way.”

“I know. It’s my house,” Tyler told me, laughing, “I’ve been upstairs the whole time. Why else would I be so willing to just let you stay with me? You guys have been working here, off and on, for the past few months. I’ve just been upstairs, preparing things.”

“Preparing what,” I said as I pulled up to the house, knowing the exact location to which he was referring. It was the only home we had worked on in that neighborhood, ever.

“For today,” he said through a grin, “let's get started.”

The two-story house had missing spots of beige siding, showing the rotten plywood that my coworkers and I hadn’t yet repaired. No drywall covered studs constructing walls inside, and floor joists that we had already repaired were covered with sheets of plywood, forming subfloor throughout. My company had yet to touch the raggedy staircase, that cracked and shifted with each step as Tyler and I made our way upstairs.

Drawings and notes covered tables lining walls of the large room that made up the second level of the home. Tyler had written out detailed plans for all sorts of things, and he was ready to finance it all via soap production. He had it all figured out. He was ready to end the madness, which this world had become, and start living in his own free world, built around the concepts of chaos and mayhem.

“Take these,” he said, tossing me a black shirt and black jeans, “put those on. It’s time to start.”

For some reason- and I’m still not, really, sure why- I listened like SS soldiers did to their fuhrer. It was time. Something inside told me that.

We marched downstairs, after I was dressed in my new outfit, then walked back outside to climb back in my truck and hit the streets. Tyler knew what we were about to do.

The first thing we did was drive to a bank, out by the countryside, that he said he had been going to for years. He told me to walk in and tell the woman behind the counter that I was Tyler. He said he had known her forever and that she wouldn’t ask any questions. He told me to take out twenty thousand dollars, that we were going to use that to start our soap-selling business. I stepped out of my truck and walked through the front doors of the bank with confidence. Tyler knew what we were doing.

Nobody else was in the bank and it was the same black-haired lady that Tyler said would been working. She didn’t ask any questions at all. Just did as I asked then wished me a good day on my way out. She genuinely believed that my name was Tyler.

Before we went back to his house, Tyler wanted to make a detour. He needed to know one thing: could I be trusted?

He made me pull over on the side of the road, just in front of some random house, then told me to get out with him as he opened his door.

“Hit me,” he said, his left index finger touching his jawbone. “hit me right fucking here. As hard as you can. Do it.”

“What?” I had never hit anyone in my life.

“Punch me in the fucking face. Do it. Stop wasting your life and live, for once. Hit me.”

I did. I punched him in the chin as hard as my right hand could swing and watched him fall to the ground. Then, I watched him stand back up and tackle me to the ground as we rolled around and beat each other, bloody. We kept going until a car parked and a man got out to stop us.

I hit the man first. Tyler came right behind me and knocked him out with a flying knee. We took the man’s car. Tyler was right- it was time to live life for once. This was my time.

We went to my boss’s house. His wife was home by herself, just as she was every time I had been made to come by and drop something off for her piece-of-shit husband. She was standing at the half-open front door, completely naked, as I walked up.

I fucked my boss’s wife that day. I told him I would.

Tyler and I then went to the jobsite at which my boss would be standing around. When we pulled up, I saw him sitting in his purple Nissan Titan. I grabbed the hammer I had in the bed of my truck as soon as I got out then walked over and smashed out all his windows. Tyler kept screaming about how I had just fucked his wife, as I shattered every fragment of glass on the outside of that fat ass’s truck.

My coworkers cheered us on as we were leaving. There was more time left in the day. Tyler knew what we would do with it.

He directed me to City Hall, where all the important business took place, having me park in the garage above the courthouse. He handed me a pipe bomb and told me to walk down the stairs, into the court’s lobby. He said I should place the bomb under the clerk’s desk, when nobody would be looking…

“Good morning, Charles,” a white-haired woman, wearing black slacks and a white blouse said, entering an all-white room, with only one chair and table. A man was sitting there, writing in a little black notebook.

“Hi, nurse,” a dark-haired man said from within his hospital gown.

She handed the man a handful of pills- a concoction of medication to ease with his visions, saying, “take these for now. I’ll have to bring the rest after you eat. How are you, today?”

“Better,” he said, “I’m writing again.”

“That’s good. It’ll help digest everything and break it down. Help you deal with everything that happened.”

The man swallowed the mouthful of pills without water- it had become easy by now- then said, “Yeah. Can I meet Buster Landru Casey, today?”

“No, sweetie. But I’ll be back in a little bit. Just keep writing.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He lowered his head, putting pencil to pad, as his caretaker left, silently.