The Violation in 314 ✔️

***2***

Mickey snapped awake, pinching at his eyes as he did. Had he been asleep? Shit! Never fall asleep on duty. Never. Sure, he was the manager's great nephew, but she had plenty of those and with the economy in the shitter, half of them needed jobs.

He sat up in the chair, straightening his back and smoothing out the sleep wrinkles from his uniform. As the wrinkles fell away, he gave an odd half smile. He liked the uniform. The shirt and slacks were made of a dark black fabric, thick and smooth with a red trim on the pockets and a shield embroidered on the left arm reading security. His boots were polished leather, and his belt, well that was the crown jewel. It might as well have been Batman's utility belt as far as Mickey was concerned, though its most deadly attachments were his silver Maglite and an expired can of Mace.

Mickey felt something wet in his beard. He wiped a string of spittle away flinging it towards the tiled floor. Focus, he thought, slapping lightly at his cheeks. Wake up and focus.

The front door creaked, and Mickey's eyes shot unnaturally wide. I'm not sleeping! he thought and shifted his attention to the door, clicking on his Maglite.

The entrance was across the lounge, which itself was sunken down from the courtyard by a half flight of steps. Mickey cast his light towards the door, despite the foyer already being lit by an overhead chandelier, and strained to see who was entering so late.

"Evening." The word came out throaty and more of a question than a greeting. Coupled with the glare from the flashlight, that questioning inflection bore a striking resemblance to an interrogation.

A young strawberry blonde carrying a green reusable tote full of groceries shielded her eyes. "Good evening." Her voice was meek and there was a hint of irritation in her obviously obligatory response. This was that hippie chick from up in 408. As the night security guard you had to know who lived where – it was all part of the job. You also have to make them feel secure. It's about image as much as it is action.

He looked her up and down, never shifting the beam of his light. Thin blouse, tight jeans (very tight) and sandals. One of those green-loving reusable bags, and a small purse. Nothing out of the ordinary. Still, I need to show interest.

"I see you're all alone tonight," Mickey said. "Everything okay?"

"Um... yeah," she muttered as she pressed on the up call button for the elevator – repeatedly. She was in a hurry and kept her eyes averted. Mickey noticed and was not pleased at all.

"You sure?"

She nodded, and then disappeared into the elevator and out of his line of sight. Mickey listened as the elevator car lurched and then began its ascent. After it had finally stopped, likely on the fourth floor, he clicked off his flashlight.

"Bitch," he muttered under his breath. She could have at least bothered with an actual response, or even once met his eyes.

Of course, none of the tenants did; not really. People tended not to like him. Mickey was used to this. He wasn't well liked in school, and he hadn't been well liked in any job since he graduated. For years he had moved from one crap job to the next, never able to hold anything down longer than a few months before some prick found an excuse to get rid of him. So he was socially awkward; he still did his job well. Except for that sleeping on duty bit; that wasn't professional at all, he thought. Well, fuck me, I guess not.

Mickey sighed. He could still feel the tug of sleep pulling at his eyes. His lids were heavy and he suspected he had a pair of deep raccoon bags. This shift was going to be painful.

He hadn't chosen to work nights, but, just his luck, it had come with the job. Part of him had wanted desperately to turn his great aunt down when she offered him the shift, but in the end that part of him had lost. The case it had presented was weak and founded purely on his laziness. Jobs were too hard to come by now to get all choose-y.

Sometimes the shift worked out fine, but other times Mickey found it impossible to sleep the day before. Daytime sleeping never came easy for him, and this being a Thursday, it was the first day of the four-day night shift. Tomorrow would be easier. He'd be exhausted when he went back to the apartment in the morning, and he'd likely crash immediately, getting a full day's sleep. Tonight, however, tonight was going to be a bitch.

Mickey pulled out a Red Monster from under his chair and popped the top. No, he wasn't going to make it through the night without a little help. He guzzled down most of the energy drink wincing as he did. He hated the taste, but the damn thing did its job. In a few minutes that caffeine rush would jolt his system and he'd be wired to go for at least another hour.

Another hour of snot-nosed, spoiled tenants too good to look me in the eyes. He hated the way they avoided him. Like that bitch from 408. She might as well had said 'Fuck off' as 'Good evening' cause she sure as hell didn't mean what she said. And not once meeting his gaze, it was shit like that which got under Mickey's skin and just crawled around jerking at his goad.

Fuck her, he thought. One of these days someone ought to break into her apartment and teach her a lesson in manners - her and half of these lousy tenants. Her and her tight, tight jeans. His thoughts drifted into an unpleasant place – 'a mucky, dirty place' as his father would have said. Mickey shook his head violently. He didn't like these thoughts. He was a good man; a bit tired, definitely irritable, and a little annoyed at being ignored and ostracized (not one of these tenants has bothered to learn my name), but still a good man.

Man? Ha! This was his father's voice and Mickey wished it would shut the hell up. You're nothing more than a nasty little boy thinking thoughts like that, you shit tard! His dad had always liked to swear with a mixture of the foul and the censored, one usually redundant of the other.

You've got a job to do, his dad voice continued, and you sit here pissing and moaning about being mistreated. I worked a cab for twenty years 'til some racist shit fudge shot my ass for all of fifteen god-damned dollars and change, and you want to bitch about some rich hippie girl who was mean to you while you fantasize about stripping her down and what, working your magic on her? She'd as soon laugh in your face. And what type of thought is that anyway? We taught you better! You're supposed to settle down with a nice girl, not dip your dick stick in the first slut that–-

Whack! Mickey slapped his face hard. He didn't know if it was to shut up his dad or punish himself because his dad was right, but it didn't matter. The slap did the trick. The nagging voice of guilt was gone.

Only, as he listened to the loud slap echoing through the courtyard, Mickey heard something else. There were other voices – loud angry voices – mingling with the echoes of that slap, echoes--