It's Not A Side Effect Of The Cocaine, I Am Thinking It Must Be Love

chapter four- ways to go

I had packed up my things and braced myself to spring out of my chair and get out long before the clock read four o' clock. The accounting firm I worked at was technically a side job, a way to make some extra money and make the five grand going into my bank account every month seem a little less suspicious, but it was incredibly boring. Nonetheless, it was necessary, and only nine to four every week day. I mumbled a few "have a nice weekend's to coworkers as I made my way out, not bothering to add names onto the end of the statement. I hadn't bothered to learn them, and they were probably all typical, one-syllable, simple names that I wouldn't be able to keep straight anyway.

I sighed and leaned back in my seat when I got into the car. I was exhausted and hungry, and not in the mood to get out of the car or make a detour on the way home. I wanted something greasy, salty, and terrible. I wanted McDonald's. This was all Pancho's fault, as most things seemed to be recently. Pancho and his weird enthusiasm over McDonald's had me craving food that probably wasn't even food. I started the car, pulled out of the parking lot, and turned onto the busy street that lead to Mickey D's.

I pulled into the drive-thru, focusing in on the violin melody of the symphony that was playing on the radio while I waited for the car in front of me to finish ordering.

When I pulled up to the speaker box, a strangely familiar voice greeted me, asking, "Hi, welcome to McDonald's, may I take your order?"

"Pancho?"

There was a pause, and then the muffled voice coming from the speaker box spoke again, "Pretty boy?"

I froze. "Uh," was all I could get out. What the hell. In the week that he'd been staying with us, there was literally no avoiding Pancho. I couldn't even go to McDonald's without running into him. That was almost surprising as the fact that he had a job.

Pancho, on the other hand, laughed. "Hey, man! Hey, hey, how are you? How was work?"

"I-" I was stuttering like crazy, and a glance at my hands gripping the steering wheel proved that I was shaking. Why was he working there? How was he working there? How didn't I know? This guy just kept fucking with my mind and I was getting tired with it. "You work here?" I finally managed to get out.

There was a short pause, and I could just picture him nodding before realizing we couldn't see each other. "Yep. Got hired... Tuesday I think? Anyway," for a second I thought he was going to get back to business and take my order; but then again, this was Pancho, and of course he just said, "Y'know, the weirdest thing happened on the way to work today, yeah," he sniffed, "And, ah, so there was this cat? There was a cat, this cat just hangin' out in the middle of the street, and I'm like 'Hey, cat!' and then it started walking towards me, and then I realized that this cat, it's actually a raccoon! There's just a fuckin' raccoon hangin' out in the middle of the street in the middle of the day and it's just walkin' towards me, y'know?"

I sighed. Not only was Pancho seemingly inescapable, he also still couldn't fucking shut up, even when he was working at McDonald's. Especially when he was working at McDonald's. "Look, man, can't we just talk about this when you get home?"

"But I haven't seen you all day!" he protested.

"Come on, you're gonna get yourself fired, just take my order and I'll see you in like, an hour."

Pancho sniffed, sighed, and groaned, "Yeah, alright. Fine. What can I get for you today," he paused for effect, "sir?" I could hear the smirk in his voice through the speaker. He was probably trying to wink again, to no avail.

I took advantage of the fact that he couldn't see me and rolled my eyes. "Small fry and a small diet Coke, please."

A sound came through the speaker like he was unsuccessfully trying to hold back laughter. "Haha, you're getting Coke-"