Taxman

Taxman

  M. Matheson

  Copyright 2014 Michael Matheson

  ISBN: 9781311634993

  Kenneth Selznick at forty-one years of age still lived with his mother. He did not despise her. Oh no, that would be much too weak a word to describe his feelings for her. Loathe, now there was a word that more accurately portrayed Kenneth’s feelings for the woman who had given him life. And loathe her he did, with every cell of his being. Their hatred did not seem mutual though; at least it was not readily apparent, for she referred to him always as her Little Kenny.

  If he’d any, friends that is, they would have been snickering behind their hands and mocking her behind his back, “Little Kenny…” making sure they stretched that name Kenny out until it snapped. At the Internal Revenue Service, where he worked, he had made more than one failed attempt to convert to a more grownup and friendly sounding Ken. That awkward request had been met with silent incredulous looks.

  Once, he asked Mother if she would please call him Ken or Kenneth, but was met with such derisive replies and cackling laughs the words are not fit for this writer’s pen.

  Malvina had made a good start on her own version of the American Dream, right up until the Sheriff’s Department showed up to seize their nice two-story home in the suburbs and forcefully move the family out onto the street. The bank had foreclosed months ago but had exercised patience. The family’s bank accounts were well past drained and they were drowning in debt.

  It wasn’t that Mr. Selznick had not made plenty of money managing a crew of men who stamped out nuts, bolts and washers, but his spouse had an immense appetite for fine things and exhausted their income on her own lavish living. Even though it was nice when she was gone on a cruise to the Bahamas, it was hard to scrape together enough to eat while she was gone. At home Malvina dined on rib-eye steak and good wine while at the same table her son was served Top Ramen, a small pat of butter added as a luxury. Jedidiah, even though he lacked balls and a backbone, showed solidarity with his son and refused the finer food.

  Up until the fateful day, Malvina sauntered through town in expensive outfits while Little Kenny put up with constant taunts at school over his ragamuffin clothes. Kenny received the fat side of a razor strap more than once for pleading with Mother to buy him higher grade used clothing.

  The Sheriff’s Department brought in a crew of cadets, teenagers and young men that stood like chessmen ready to do the tedious work of carrying the Selznick goods out of the house and onto the lawn and driveway. The youngsters rolled their eyes at Mrs. Selznick’s antics which sent her into a flying rage, and resulted in scratches and sprains for a few of the young men.

  Jedidiah Selznick stood by stoically as six Sheriff’s deputies hog-tied his wife. He secretly wished he’d had the nerve to do it himself long ago. They left her, in a Neiman Marcus three-hundred-dollar pencil skirt, writhing and spitting venom on the front lawn. Grass never did grow there again. If Malvina had been tough to deal with before, she now became a poster girl for the lethal injection of nuisances upon society.

  Up until then, she had done the least possible duty as a mother and wife; now – she did less than that. Her presence sapped the last drop of life from the entire household. Yet, for some odd reason, no one had the guts to murder her or just up and leave. That is, until Jedidiah Selznick lay dead on the living room floor. There were no tears or screams when they found his body, and he had an unnatural grin that no mortician was able to remove. Little Kenny was horrified, not at his death but at the prospect of life without his father’s presence, the only thing that lessened the sting of life with Mother.

  In his grownup years, Kenneth Selznick worked as an auditor with the Internal Revenue Service and held the top performing position, a huge accomplishment within the seventh largest economy of the world. This was Kenneth’s sole distinction on this earth.