Do you know how fucked you are?

Let me explain exactly how fucked like a passed out prom date’s dry asshole you really are.

You scratched the paint. You think a guy like me, drives a different car every day, wouldn’t care about that shit. But this car don’t belong to me. It belongs to the boss. He lent it to me for the day, because he knows I like quality. I got it in the best body shop around. Costin’ me a fortune. So it’s a matter of personal pride that I make you experience the level of personal pain I’m going through here.

That’s why I got you zip tied to that fucking chair. You’re not the first, either. Maybe you noticed the burn marks and the blood stains?

Yeah. That’s my favorite chair. Metal, with some real wood accents.

Not the particle board shit. See, I know quality. This abandoned school has a lot of chairs like that. I got six of ’em home around a dining table I made out of an oak door.

Restoration Hardware wants three fuckin’ gees for a table like that, but I made it myself. With this belt sander right here. Hear it?

Quality. Weighs a fuckin’ ton. I could bash your head in with it, but then it would be over too quick. You wouldn’t learn nothing that way.

I got a 220 grit belt on it. Takes off a lot of wood. Skin, too. But you’ll learn that soon enough.

Now, Mr. Shitty Fuckin’ Driver, let’s begin the lesson. For one, U turns are illegal on Bloomfield Avenue. Did you know that? No? Well, you sure as fuck do now. I even honked when I saw you doing it. You know, to let you know I was traveling at a rate of speed that would make stopping in time a dicey proposition, but you kept going.

For what, a parking space? I know parking is at a premium in your chi-chi town. But with a Benz like that, I figure you could’ve sprung for a lot. Or a valet, even. And what the fuck were you doing, honking back at me, like I was in the wrong? Listen. No, listen. I can’t hear you through the duck tape, asshole. So shut up and listen.

I know, stabbing you in the back of the knee with an ice pick, choking you out, putting you in your own trunk… I broke a lot of laws there.

Maybe you figured it out, that I ain’t exactly an altar boy. But I read the New Jersey Driver’s Manual when I got out of juvenile prison.

Now why you may ask? A guy like me bought his license from a hairy Armenian bouncer, why read the rules? So I don’t get pulled over and violated for some stupid traffic infringement, that’s why. If I’m gonna go back to Rahway prison, it ain’t gonna be for neglecting to turn my headlights on during a rain event.

No, it’ll probably be for killing somebody. Not you. Some made guy. I been picked up a few times as a person of interest, held 48 hours- you know they can do that shit? Hold you for questioning? I don’t suppose it happens to rich old fucks like you often. Some mobbed up guy disappears, maybe gets sorta identified from a tattoo I forgot to sand off with this thing, after I snip his fingertips off with pruning shears and knock his teeth out with a framing hammer- I like the framing hammers, they got a nice long handle for leverage- and his corpse floats up in the Hackensack River on account I didn’t use enough baling wire to tie him to the car batteries holding him down, and they pick me up. They know me. They fuck with me. And see, sometimes I think I’m fucked, but they got nothing. They use their own belt sanders on me. Lack of sleep, bullshit stories about someone flipping on the boss, snitching me out.

But see, those guys know about this chair. And they don’t wanna end up in it. They know I’m not the only guy who uses it, and they snitch me, my brother’ll bring them here. And he makes me look like nicer than a teenage girl’s tight snatch. Speaking of which, I got your house keys.

I expect those two blonde high schoolers in your wallet photo will be home when I show up. Maybe you can think of all the stuff we’re gonna do together, while I’m sanding your nipples off.

Why do guys have ’em anyway? I think about shit like that. Boss says I don’t think enough, says I got a temper. Well, I do. It’s why I do what I do. If I cooled off, you think I would’ve brought you here?

No, don’t try to answer. It’s time to get down to business. I’m gonna start with that finger you like waving so much. There we go. Just like clipping a thick toenail. I’d ask you where you get your manicures, but you’d just scream, I bet. And the other one. Now you got four fingers like people in a cartoon. Why the fuck do they do that? Is it that hard to draw one more fuckin’ finger? I think about shit like that, too.

The sander’s my favorite part. Look at me. I said look at me. It’s gonna hurt whether you look at me or not, lemme tell you.

Who the fuck you looking at?

Who, Junior? What the fuck you doin’ here bro?

Boss?

Oh, fuck.

Bio:

Thomas Pluck is a writer living in New Jersey. His work has appeared in Shotgun Honey, The Morning News, and Flash Fiction Offensive. He has stories upcoming in Beat to a Pulp, Crimefactory, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. He is currently at work revising a novel.