READ PART 1 on Easyriders.com by clicking here
On the appointed day, Pickles and I rode over to the IRS District Office in North Weewauk. We were scrubbed clean (mostly) and made sure we were early. In fact, we got there so early that we went to a little tavern down the block. After a little pickling from a few 16-ounce big boys, our confidence returned.
"Scrub, this shouldn't be too bad. I don't make enough money to be worth their while."
"Pickles, they don't care. They break bones to suck out the marrow."
"Where's that bartender? I want another."
"Don't worry. You always paid your payroll taxes."
"Yup, they took it before I even seen it."
"Pickles, you're an upstanding citizen. You pay gas tax for the highways, sales tax for the state, cigarette tax … uh … for all those ads telling you not to smoke and booze tax so the politicians can drink too."
"Yeah and they drink better stuff than I can afford."
"Remember, Pickles, forget any of the money we've ever made from bikes."
"But that's our ticket out of pickle and scrub."
"For this meeting fucking fuggedaboutit. Forget bikes. Forget the wheel ever got invented. Understand?"
"Why? I'm proud of those bikes. Scrub, somebody had to invent the wheel?"
"Pickles, you weren't proud enough to claim the money on your taxes. Were you?"
"Oh. Gotcha."
"Neither, my friend, did I."
By the time we finished two more rounds we were late for our appointment. We ran down the block like we were chasing a skinny quarterback. Pickles had gone through several "growth spurts" so was slower than 60-weight oil on a January day in Fargo. We tumbled through the door together, alcohol racing through our systems, sweating like hogs in a sauna.
It was a big room with eight rows of metal desks in eight lines. After I ciphered for a while I realized there had to be over fifty IRS bone breakers. They all looked up at Pickles and me like we were din-din. It were disconcerting.
We slunk over to some folding metal chairs in a waiting area. Pickles took up two and half of mine. Though we were late, we still waited an hour.
"Mr. Llewelyn. Joseph Llewelyn?"
"Pickles, that's you."
The woman calling for Pickles looked nice enough. In fact, she looked real nice. She had dark hair up in a bun, a nicely fitted navy blue suit over what looked like a real nicely fitted body. I saw white lace where the jacket opened and imagined she was wearing one of those body suits with the convenient snap crotch. Forget the wheel; who invented those?
“Good afternoon. I’m Jane Campbell. Please come over to my desk.”
Pickles’s feet were planted in concrete, so I gave him a little shove.
“Can my friend Scrub come too?”
“Sure. The more the merrier.”
We all squeezed down an aisle to her desk. Fact is, she didn’t have to squeeze at all. I had to squeeze a little and Pickles turned sideways and his belly and ass swept papers, files, nameplates, paperclips and pictures of ugly families off every desk down the line.
What with all the commotion, some weasel from an office in the back scurried out and hairy eyeballed us. Weasel boy had to be the most repulsive thing I ever saw. He was a short, tubby little fuck. His skin was pasty like the underside of a slug. He probably never saw the light of day living under some rock feeding off dead flesh. He stood with his stubby arms at his side, but the hairy backs of his hands faced forward like he hadn’t quite made it to me and Pickles’s elevated rung on the evolutionary ladder. His short-sleeved shirt went down past his elbows exposing more red hair on his forearms than on his head which was mostly bald except for some gigantic mutant freckles.
“Ms. Campbell … now!” he called to our little lady, and she excused herself. First thing I did when she left was check out her rear view which was the nicest I’d seen in I don’t know how long. Her suit jacket hung just to the peaks of her proud uplifted buttocks (heh, heh I read that somewhere and I always wanted to say it). The skirt was short enough to show legs that would look good wrapped around a Harley … or me.
Pickles whispered, “Hey, Scrub, there’s my return.”
In the middle of her desk was Pickles’s 1040. Jesus, Mary and Willie G. Where there wasn’t motorcycle grease, there were acid holes. No wonder they were auditing the sloppy behemoth.
Sweet Jane (that would be Ms. Campbell, but in my mind that’s what I started calling her cause she reminded me of a contented Kentucky blue high) came back and looked real unhappy. She sat down and turned her attention back to us.
“Your weasel boss looks like a fun guy,” I said.
She looked at me for a long moment, then laughed, “Oh, that he is. I shouldn’t say this, but he wanted me to find something on Mr. Llewelyn no matter what.”
Pickles looked around for his father who’d been dead ten years.
“Pickles, that’s you again.”
Jane continued, “I’m not going to do it. I’ve had enough of this place. Look, Mr. Llewelyn, the only problem is something happened to your return and we need a new copy. These black marks have nearly obliterated some of your numbers and, whatever these holes are, have eaten up your signature.”
I piped up, “Damn, that must have been one of those psycho postal workers shoving it through some goddamn machine.”
Pickles picked it up, “Yeah. Friggin post office.”
Sweet Jane looked at Pickles’s T-shirt which had the same grease marks and matching acid holes. “I see they also mangled your poor shirt when your custom shirtmaker shipped it to you.” She leaned closer to us and said softly, “I understand completely.”
Meanwhile I got a peep down her suit jacket and this baby was packing that which for art thou I dream of.
“I’ve filled out a new form for you. All you have to do is review and sign it.”
While Pickles was trying to remember how to spell Llewelyn, me and Sweet Jane were chatting away and making goo-goo eyes.
“I don’t need to ask if you two have bikes. My father had a Harley. I know what they mean to you. If some people around here had their way, they’d take yours and sell them at auction.”
Seems I knew her father, mostly by reputation, a tough honest biker from way back when.
“What would he think of you working here?”
“Despite his wild ways, he wanted me to get something respectable and secure. I wanted to be a designer. You know, clothing and jewelry, but that’s an iffy business. He made me promise I’d go for the sure thing. Turns out the only sure thing here is that it breaks your spirit.”
“Scrub, how many L’s in my name?”
“Jane, I don’t think your pops would have wanted you doing this job.”
“He didn’t know it was totally without honor. Not dishonorable, just absent the concept. The rules of government? Never make a decision and be enthusiastic about every stupid, meaningless idea the bureaucrat above you espouses. When he was wrecked with cancer and without medical insurance, he thought a secure job was everything. He was too worn out to know that a regular paycheck didn’t necessarily do anything for your soul. It doesn’t make you a righteous person and you’re nothing if not righteous.”
“Amen, sister.”
“It’s kind of unfair. We’re hated for the collecting, but it’s the wasteful spending which should be attacked.”
Pickles took this all in and scowled, “They’re wasting my money?”
“Don’t get me wrong. There are good people here who work hard. Probably a third. Then there’s a third who are either lazy, incompetent or both. Finally, the last third work, but selfishly for their own advancement and don’t really care if there’s any right or wrong to it. Their greatest ability is planting their lips on the supervisor’s backside.
“You mean butt-sucking, rump-swabbing ass-kissers.”
“You put it so much better.”
“Where does the mutant weasel fit in?”
I didn’t even want to speak of his type … the few evil ones. Those have a sadistic, blood lust. They love assembling numbers and running to the next sadist up the ladder to show their body count. They would have made excellent Nazis.”
Pickles finally finished his signature with only two cross-outs. I told her I hoped to see her again, but not in that place. As she smiled goodbye, the mutant weasel summoned her to his office. She shook our hands and sighed as she turned.
TO BE CONTINUED…..
