4Ever Jeans

A new story from Brian Callahan

4Ever Jeans

The Last pair of Jeans you will ever wear

By Brian Callahan

            Cody stepped inside the office and took a seat across from the man behind the desk, who looked up in surprise as he didn’t have any appointments registered for this time slot.

            Cody wasn’t a particularly imposing figure. His hairline was receding and he had the beginnings of a gut from too many beers when watching football with the guys. His mustache looked like it would fit better on a porn star, circa 1970.

            “May I help you?” The man behind the desk inquired politely.

For the record, the man behind the desk, whose name was Bruce, wasn’t anything to write home about either. His thinning red hair had lost the battle, and what remained of it, greasy red strips, lay in a messy comb-over to one side of his head. A thin trickle of sweat ran down the side of his face, conspicuous in the cool room. He was dressed in an ill fitting suit that seemed to be too large on him in some areas while being too small in others.

Cody smiled at Bruce and it was easily his best feature. “I’ve came in for a fitting. I heard about your product and decided I must have it.”

This wasn’t the way things were supposed to work and Bruce cocked his head a little to the side as he re-appraised Cody. “You heard about it? You didn’t receive an invitation?”

Cody’s smile went a little lopsided as he stated, “No…was I supposed to?”

Bruce’s own smile was now noticeably nervous now and he seemed to be trying to formulate an answer when Cody stood up, leaning over the desk to take a look as he asked, “Are you wearing a pair of 4Ever Jeans? I’d really like to take a look close up.”

“N-no,” Bruce stammered, pushing his chair back as Cody invaded his personal space. This did confirm that he was not, in fact, wearing jeans of any kind, but khakis. “I d-don’t qualify, unfortunately. We have a very strict invitation only policy…which is why I was so surprised when you came in.” Bruce managed to regain some of his confidence while giving this explanation and now, on more familiar ground, his stammer faded.

Cody, apparently, was still stuck on the first part. “You work here and they won’t sell you a pair of jeans?”

“These aren’t just any jeans, sir,” Bruce insisted, “these are 4Ever Jeans and, they will change your life.”

Cody smiled. “I don’t guess I understand, but that’s one hell of a sales pitch. So…let’s get this thing moving. I’m a 38 waist, 30 length.”

Bruce just looked at him for a long moment, wondering if the man had actually heard anything he said. Finally, he took a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry, sir. Without an invitation from the company, I’m not allowed to process your order. It’s a very strict selection process.”

“So…,” Cody said, his voice now unsure, “You’re telling me that you won’t do business with me just because I didn’t get an invite. Pardon me, but that seems like a very poor business model.”

This, Bruce latched onto, could be a good thing. “Quite right.” He agreed with Cody in the hopes that the fellow would go on and let Bruce get back to getting about his day. “It does seem like that.”

Bruce was about to go on and recommend one of their competition for the man to go to, but then something unusual happened. Something that had never happened before. The phone on his desk rang. Honestly, Bruce, who received most of his communications via email, had not even known the thing worked. But it did, ringing merrily. And then it did it again. Fascinating.

Bruce realized that Cody was looking at him expectedly, and he grabbed at the phone, fumbling it for a brief moment before getting the receiver to his ear. Whatever he might have been about to say was quenched as whoever was on the other side of the phone began talking AT him. Cody couldn’t make out what was being said, but he recognized the tone and it wasn’t particularly friendly.

After a long moment, Bruce said, in a somewhat subdued voice, “Yes, Sir. I’ll take care of it immediately.” He set the phone back in its cradle slowly, to give him a moment to compose himself.  “Mr. Cody Larimore, It’s my pleasure to let you know that you have been preapproved for the 4Ever Jeans program. My superiors have set you up for an immediate fitting, if you have the time?”

“Of course!” Cody exclaimed, so surprised by the turnaround that he totally failed to notice that they used his full name, even though he had never offered it. He did pause to ask, “Can you tell me how much this will cost me?”

Bruce glanced at him, an expression on his face quickly hidden as he said, “Oh, there’s no charge, Mr. Larimore. You’re doing us a favor by wearing them.”

As they led Cody out of the room to his fitting, he puzzled over that half glimpsed expression on Bruce’s face. Was it…pity?

A few moments after Cody departed, a door on the other side of the small office, concealed to look like a standard wall panel, slid aside, revealing a small cubicle filled with computing equipment. Mbuti stepped out, giving Bruce a big smile and a wink. Bruce was convinced that the main reason Mbuti was hired was because of his diminutive stature. The stout, black man barely topped five feet and he fit in the hidden compartment relatively well. Bruce was sure that it wasn’t because of his attitude, which tended towards abrasiveness.

“One more sucker down the drain!” Mbuti exclaimed loudly, smacking the fist of one hand into the palm of the other. “Bruce, old fellow, we’re going to have to slow down or we’ll reach our goal too early.”

There wasn’t much to say to that so they sat down across the desk from each other and pulled out their lunch pails.

“Yuck, chicken salad again.” Mbuti complained, adding, “You want to trade? What you got today?”

Bruce suspected that Mbuti’s wife, who knew well that he didn’t like chicken salad, was doing it on purpose. Sometimes the man brought in chicken salad four out of every five days at the office. “PBJ.” Bruce said, after checking what his mother had put in his lunch that day. They traded off and both were happier.

After a time, Bruce set aside the last of his sandwich. He looked around carefully, to make sure none of the other few employees were listening in. “I don’t understand though, Mbuti, why do people want these jeans so bad? What’s so special about them?”

Mbuti, like Bruce, did not own a pair of 4Ever Jeans, nor did anyone on the staff that Bruce had ever met. Mbuti looked thoughtful though, considering the question carefully before responding.

“I’m not really sure…but I was talking to some of the guys from Research & Development. One of the guys, Ricky, is on my bowling league and we went out for some drinks later.” Mbuti lit up a cigarette directly under the No Smoking sign and took a deep drag and exhaled it before saying anything more.

Bruce decided internally that the only thing he disliked more than people talking in vagaries was people smoking in his office but he kept his peace because he truly was interested in the subject…and he was a bit of an introvert, non-confrontationalist.

Mbuti cocked one foot up on the edge of Bruce’s desk and blew a smoke ring. Bruce might have been impressed if a portion of it hadn’t collided with his face. “Now, you’re going to think I’m crazy but this is exactly what Ricky told me.”

Bruce had long hosted the suspicion that Mbuti was, at least by Bruce’s standards, clinically insane, so internally he agreed even though he hadn’t heard the story yet. He smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring manner and gestured vaguely for the other man to go on.

“Ricky said that they were alive.”

There was a clatter, a grunt of pain and a muttered but heartfelt curse as Bruce fell out of his chair and Mbuti helped him back into it.

With a somewhat dazed look on his face, Bruce said, “I’m sorry…for a moment there I thought you said that they were alive.” Bruce let out a nervous chuckle, quickly stilled by Mbuti’s next words.

“Yeah, matey, that’s it exactly.” A brief pause, another smoke ring, Bruce dodged it this time as Mbuti started to explain. “They’re like, a parasite or something. They consume all body waste and in turn, amongst other things, they feed the wearer loads of serotonin and dopamine.” Mbuti giggled slightly as he added, “And apparently they are very comfortable.”

There was very little that Mbuti had just said that was not disturbing to Bruce and he considered the whole thing while he cleaned up the few crumbs from his lunch. Finally, he asked, “But how can they afford to do it for free? There are costs, and our salaries, and…”

Mbuti waved a hand, gesturing him into silence. “Nah, matey, these blokes have got more money than they know what to do with. You know that target sales number they’re always dangling in front of you….what is it, two million or something massive like that…I think when you reach that number, when you have that many people wearing the jeans…well, I think something is going to happen.”

They sat there in silence for several minutes before Bruce asked, “What do you think is going to happen?”

Mbuti stubbed out his cigarette on the arm of his chair, looked Bruce straight in the eyes and said, “I think they’re going to have babies. Very hungry babies.”

~ end

Thank you for visiting Vampiremaman.com for another Tangled Tale. Brian Callahan is member of WPaD (Writers, Poets, and Deviants) and a regular contributor to their short story anthologies.

~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman