Taxman Page 3
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“Kenny! Kenny, my dear! Would you fetch your sweet mother a box of Oreos and a fresh Budweiser?”
Little Kenny knew if he were to say, “In a minute,” or “Not right now,” the wicked Malvina would make life even more of a living hell than it had been thus far.
It is taken for granted upon this spinning blue globe that most men have at least an idle scrap of love for even the most severe of mothers. When it comes to mothers, sons can forgive even the meanest of transgressions. Kenneth Selznick had searched for some shred of love in his own heart, even wished for a torn bit he might hold onto – then perhaps he wouldn’t have to… Well you’ll see.
This was a family formed of recalcitrant disrespect. Kenneth Selznick had the income, and Malvina held the power. “Mom” was much too nice a term, so he addressed her mostly as Mother and once in a while, when he was feeling very brave, which wasn’t often, he used her given name.
As the only living person privy to his secret life, Malvina the Malevolent held a noose loosely around his neck, and from time to time she yanked it tight – just as a reminder. When Jedidiah Selznick was alive, Kenneth’s life had edged somewhere close to bearable, but bearable was buried even deeper than his father.
Splayed out in front of the TV, all two hundred and seventy-five pounds of Malvina always dressed in one of her hideous flowered Muumuus. No more pencil skirts for her. She proved to be a tremendous embarrassment at weddings and funerals.
Day and night her television kept up a continuous hum of soap operas, Springer and other such schlock as she crammed handfuls of Oreos into her fat, fleshy mouth and washed them down with long-necked Budweisers.
When Kenneth was once again forced into her presence to stoop, fetch and do her bidding, a looming wretch would work its way up and into his throat. The sight and smell of this behemoth could not have been worse had he been rolled around in a pile of dead and decaying farm animals.
Like a tide drawn by the moon, blinds rolled down all over the neighborhood and doors slammed shut as the grotesque daily show of Malvina passed by walking her beloved little Sparkles. A harmless looking Chihuahua, Sparkles hated Little Kenny, and a bright moment in Kenneth’s day was anytime he heard the sharp “YAP!” as he sent a surreptitious kick into the ugly mutt’s ribs.
Despite his own pronouncements on the world around him, Kenneth was no pretty picture. Coworkers kept up protracted arguments over what could possibly be his most offensive attribute. Was it the perpetually runny nose with just a bit of mucus peeking out and threatening to drop, or the out-of-date plaid shirts? The nasal slime usually won, but others, believe it or not, were most repulsed by his black horn-rimmed glasses so thick with greasy smudges it was a wonder he could see. Despite it all, there was not a more harmless looking person than Kenneth. Oddly, or not, many pedophiles and serial killers opted for the same innocuous facade.
Whoever coined the term looks can be deceiving knew Kenneth. Malvina on the other hand was everything she seemed and more. Kenneth’s ears bent towards the snickers that wafted across the lunchroom. He was keeping score, storing away each slight for the day he would exact his own special brand of ruin. Their biggest mistake: underestimating The Taxman.
In silence he ate his liverwurst or pimento loaf sandwiches, always accompanied by one hard-boiled egg and a carrot stick, add one Oreo on Fridays just to celebrate. In his profession, suicide rates were through the roof and turnover was astronomical, yet he never could comprehend why. Fridays were the saddest day of the week for Kenneth. He enjoyed his job, and weekends were torturously long for it meant two days of tending to that hideous beast, Malvina.
In person, Kenneth had no evident intrinsic value or charge on the world around him; he registered a flat zero on the Richter scale of impact human beings could make on their surroundings. As dramatic irony would have it though, he was the anti-hero, and wherever he plied his special talent, a wake of destruction and misery trailed out for miles behind him like fish guts after a trawler. He plied his trade with the exactness and delight of the executioner’s blade, noose or syringe. Kenneth’s feigned sympathy lulled victims to sleep while he gorged himself on their life’s blood, shredding their innocent little lives to smithereens.
Kenneth could imagine their thoughts, What could that harmless looking thing do? as they sat across from him as he examined their tax forms. Compassionate assistance is what he pretended to offer. It also happened to be the sales scam his employers offered to all of their “clients.”
“Now then, we just want to make sure you haven’t paid too much in,” Kenneth would say in his high nasal whine, his hands rubbing together as he approached the keyboard. He would smile, and their mouths would flatten out in little grins as they tried to conceal their terror. They always lost in the end though. Kenneth did his homework well.
Besides carrying the tax burden of the upper class elite, a choice group of good, innocent and very conscientious people also bore the brunt of Kenneth’s pain. Each person had been told the computer looked for certain red flags, but had yet selected them randomly and blindly. It was all BS meant to dizzy the prey so they wouldn’t see the final kill shot coming.
“I’m sure it will turn out to be nothing,” was a patent expression meant to keep them on the hook, distracted and away from a tax lawyer while he devoured their life’s savings.
Not even his superiors knew what lurked behind Kenneth’s disguise. They saw him as an industrious and productive employee who never took breaks, except for lunch, and always stayed late without pay. His rate of collection was the highest in California and third in the nation. This was the IRS and he was their fair-haired boy. They would take anything they could get whether they deserved it or not.
Kenneth had no time for diversions. Fun for him was pouring over conscientious taxpayers’ records and finding a crack where he could silently worm his way in. Local newspapers provided one of his best sources for victims and he scrutinized them daily. A story about a working-class hero who saved an old woman from a burning house – both the brave man and the old lady were prime targets. Archaic tax codes and twisting loopholes were Kenneth’s most proficient weapons. Scraping and scratching, he would not stop until he unearthed an excuse to flag them for an audit. Then he would funnel their appointments to his desk.
Through many years practice, Kenneth had mastered his secret craft of finding ways to make people pay. He called it Kenneth’s Tax, taxing them for their goodness and the audacity of looking for hope and happiness in this world. Happiness was a put-on, the grand facade and truth behind the Emperor’s Clothes. His joy was in stealing theirs.
While lying in bed at night, he stared at the cracked plaster ceiling and was aroused with sickly relish as he pondered the pain and stress his victims were experiencing at that very moment and how he was the cause of their insomnia. Thinking how they worried themselves into new diseases over impending audits was a drug for Kenneth. There was never enough pain to fill his junkie-sized habit, yet he drifted peacefully off to sleep every night.
To inflict the maximum amount of strain on his victims, he worked hard. His preparations were impermeable. He got high from meetings with harmless little blue-haired old ladies, single moms and low-income workers with six kids. It was even better if they had a special needs child.
Special needs, he huffed. I’ll show you special needs. Uncle Sam is needy. He’s starting to grow anemic and weak from all those tax cuts. Go ahead and deduct that $800 dollar a month medicine. Uncle Kenneth has a special way of getting that back and more.
Like a vampire over blood, he sucked the enjoyment out of people’s lives. It was a slow but steady, drip drop drip, like tapping a tree for syrup. The havoc he wreaked lasted for months and sometime years. Pursuit of happiness, my ass! Your misery IS my enjoyment.
The happiest day of his life was when the IRS recruiter showed up in high school economics class. Kenneth reminisced long and often about that day 24 years ago. Th
at career had given him such a magnificent outlet for his insanity.
At the IRS training academy, he was first in every class. If they’d had honors, Kenneth would have been valedictorian. He stayed late, paid for all the extra books to help him pass the tests and graduated at the very top of his class. He was the poster boy for what a successful auditor could be. All those nice, happy people were going to pay for their nice, happy lives. Happy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be was one of his most sacred jingles.