Benjamin Anthony Rhodes

Deep Fried

Another shitty end to another shitty day. Noah was clopening, again, even though he was pretty sure it violated some OSHA bullshit that he had to be at work five hours after clocking out. Why did McBiggies even stay open this late? No one in this shit-for-brains town went out after ten, but the owner insisted they stay open until two in the morning just in case some big-rig trucker got the hankering for midnight diarrhea. Whatever. Noah put in his earbuds, turned them up full-blast, and mopped the floor to music most people he knew would classify as “Satanic.”

It was essential that Noah closed the front of house as quickly as possible, not because he was a particularly loyal minimum wage employee committed to avoiding time theft – fuck that – but because he was closing with Jeff. Jeff was the living embodiment of everything wrong with the world. Dropout, pot-smoker, rape-joker, ass-smacker, shrimp-dick motherfucker who, for some ungodly reason, thought he was the hottest shit to ever hit the pavement. Jeff could go choke on his light beer and chicken wings. Jeff could go take an Ambien and lie sideways on the train tracks. Jeff could go hang himself with his grandma’s shit-stained panties. Jeff could go—

“Becca, will you turn that shit down? I can hear it from the walk-in.”

Noah’s dream sequence of increasingly humiliating and painful ends to the boil that was Jeff shattered, and right when they were getting good. Noah ripped out an ear bud, whipping around and wishing to God he had a weapon of some kind. No one would miss this imbecile, this veritable worm, this Jeff.

“That’s not my name, Jeff,” Noah spit. He didn’t even bother making eye contact. He put his ear bud back in, punched the volume knob on his phone, even though it was already maxed out, and mopped like he was trying to scrape the tiles off the floor.

What a piece of shit, what a cretin. These idiots have no idea what’s coming. When the grid dropped and chaos reigned supreme, Noah would laugh as Jeff and the mealworms like him begged for water, for shelter, for their puny lives while he sat on a throne of—

“Don’t touch me!” Noah shouted, dropping his mop and pushing Jeff away with both hands. The fucker had snuck up behind Noah and ripped out his ear buds with the typical audacity of a cis, straight, white guy. 

“Jesus, calm down, groomer,” Jeff retorted with great intelligence. “Keep it down or I’ll bitch about you to Janice, again. One more complaint and you get fired, right?”

Empires were burned to the ground with less fury than that which Jeff’s shit-eating grin stirred up in Noah. What made it worse, Jeff was right. Noah had already been warned by the owner, Janice, in a one-on-one last week that his ice was getting thinner and thinner. Not a single one of his own complaints against coworkers who misgendered and dead-named him seemed to find their way into any of their folders, but for some nearly unfathomable reason, every single complaint against him had been typed out, Xeroxed, and filed alphabetically. Noah hated his job, almost more than he hated the government, but he needed the money. So, he turned off his music, ground his teeth, and wheeled the mop bucket to the kitchen to drain.

“Oh, Christ, he hasn’t even shut down the friers yet,” Noah thought, rolling his eyes. He’d probably be here for another hour, at least, since he couldn’t leave till Jeff finished closing the back of house. Whatever, he’d sit in a booth and harness his anger into a rant on Discord. He liked the people in the new server he joined. They weren’t snowflakes like so many other alphabet people. They wanted real change, like him, and they weren’t afraid to dirty their hands getting it done. 

“You know, if you tried a little harder, I bet you’d be fuckable as a chick.” 

This influx of charm announced Jeff’s arrival in the kitchen. You’d think that after a year of harassing Noah, Jeff would have come up with at least some new material. But no, it always circled back around to Noah’s fuckability as a chick, broad, or female. 

“You don’t even flatten your tits all that good. I can tell you’re like a C-cup.”

Speculative fixations on Noah’s binded chest, right on cue. 

“I just think it’s kind of pathetic how hard you try and how bad you fail. You don’t look like a dude or a chick, just some sort of—”

“Freak?” Noah couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t hold his tongue and listen to the same slew of shit from another low-life piece of shit. He knew he was fuming because he couldn’t think of any other words to call Jeff than “shit.”

“Exactly,” Jeff sneered, wiping down the grill with a sponge, “you saved my breath. A freak.”

Noah straightened the bottles of bleach and ammonia on the cleaning supply shelf with a precision that would make fascists proud. These idiots have no idea what’s coming. One more word out of him, and it’s over. 

“You know, I think I saw something like you crawling around on the Discovery channel. What was it called? He-She’s Gone Wild?”

Go ahead, shithead. I dare you. One more crack like that and—

“No, it wasn’t Discovery channel,” Jeff laughed, “it was Brazzers. Some bitch like you was in a train. Damn, maybe that’s what you need. A good fucking from six fat cocks, one after the other. Maybe then you’ll stop trying to—” 

Noah had never stabbed someone before. It was much easier than he anticipated. For all the corners McBiggies cut, they sure kept their knives sharp. Jeff was screaming, trying to pull the blade from his shoulder. Noah took care of that, sticking it back in twice more. He laughed, which was a mistake.

Jeff was almost twice as big as Noah. He’d been in a good mood ten seconds ago, making fun of the local freakshow. Now he was pissed, and bleeding profusely. 

“You bitch!” Jeff screamed, socking Noah in the stomach. 

Noah doubled over, another mistake, and got a knee to the face. 

“Not so tough now, are you?” Jeff spit. He twisted his neck to try and assess his injuries. “They’re gonna have a lot of fun with you in prison, faggot. You’re fucking dead, you know that?”

Noah didn’t answer. Instead, he straightened himself with calm collection, gathered his inner resources, and headbutted Jeff in the stomach. The two struggled, deer with antlers locked. Jeff wrapped his arms around Noah’s waist, attempting some janked-up form of a pile-driver. Noah kept stabbing Jeff below the ribs. When he hit Jeff’s hip, Jeff let out a high-pitched wail his buddies would roast him for, if they were here. But they weren’t, and this little shit was killing him. 

Jeff was losing blood and strength fast, which excited Noah. He hadn’t put much thought into this whole thing, but now that he was murdering someone, he figured he better do it right. He backed away from Jeff, who stumbled and leaned against the stove. A sweat broke out on his forehead. His eyes were getting hazy. There’s no way this faggot was gonna murder him. 

This was one of the last thoughts Jeff had. Noah dropped the knife, side-stepped a weak swipe from Jeff, and grabbed the dying man from behind. Normally, Noah needed help stocking ten-pound flour sacks or five gallon buckets of mayonnaise, but the thrill of getting even coursed through his veins. Noah drug a quickly-dying Jeff under the arms to the fryers. 

It wasn’t necessarily a pleasant smell when the flesh cooked, but it also wasn’t worse than a lunch rush. Noah only wished he had his music playing to accompany the screams. Some oil splashed up onto Noah’s forearms, bubbling his skin. He didn’t feel it. He didn’t feel anything. The sound of that fucker cooking, the slip of his shoe on his own stinking blood, the crack of his head against the hard tile, it was more than cathartic. It was holy. 

Noah laughed. He laughed as he washed his hands. He laughed as he gathered his things. He laughed as he stepped over Jeff’s body, pausing to snap a picture. 

“Hey guys,” Noah typed into Discord, “you’ll never guess what I just did.”