Even a brick wants to be something

He thinks he’s Chris Tucker.
He thinks he’s so fucking funny.
He wears this T-shirt with a devil on it saying ‘God is busy. Can I help you?’

By all measures, IG is a grade-A jerk and a half.
Genetically devoid of tact or class, he’s openly leered at every new female employee that’s joined.
The last time we were colleagues, he was asked to leave after I saw him throw a chair at a fellow worker.
He’s screamed at one of his closest friends in the middle of a work day saying “You fucked her! You fucked my girlfriend! You fucker!”

Don’t like me? Fire my ass.
And people have.
IG don’t give a shit about nobody.
IG don’t need nobody’s help.
Then one day he comes to my place.

He’s dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of slacks. Brand new from the looks of it, and IG is completely uncomfortable. The act of putting on something that was actually washed must’ve been quite traumatic, as his constant fingering of the collar shows. He’s also sweating. My theory is it’s the physical strain of not swaggering. Or maybe it’s the hardship of keeping his hands to himself and not making his fingers perform some lewd gesture (his favourite was a V-sign, in-between which he would stick his tongue in a flicking motion).

I’m not the only one that sees this of course.
In fact, just passing through the department and coming up to my cubicle, he sends a ripple through the crowd in this Moses-parting-the-Red-Sea kinda way.

“Hey, I need to ask you something man.”
The tone, it’s all wrong when he says it. This can’t be right. Is he, Holy Fuck, is he being courteous?

“What is it?” I ask. I keep it even, but I really don’t know where this is going.
“You know how to tie a tie?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tie mine?”

I offer my palm, and he hands it to me. An awful, gaudy, polyester serpent.
If any of you have met me, you’d know: I ain’t Carson Kressly. But hey, even I wanted to bitch-slap him. Some shit, you just don’t wear man.

But I start tying it. For the record, I don’t usually care. We’re not friends. We don’t even say a hundred words to each other in a year. But I gotta know.

“What’s going on. You got an interview or something?”
“Yeah, kind of.”
I look up at him.
“I’m meeting her parents tonight.”

Well, fuck me dead.