FICTION
JON SURGAL
Armageddon Is Coming And I Have
N othing To Wear
North Vietnamese troops entered Saigon on a Wednesday. Mick McCool
had not eaten since the weekend, which took some of the satisfaction out
of it for him. The magazine was two weeks late with his check. It was
something that happened more frequently than not, and he did not like to
complain about it until it was absolutely necessary. He did not like the idea
of admitting to hunger. It was one of a number of things that were wrong
with his life that he did not like the idea of admitting, one of which was
the let-down feeling he had about the war being over.
When he got to the door of Heimlich's office he found Heimlich's
wife sitting behind the desk, sighting down the barrel of a water pistol. She
was giving it all her concentration. Mick stood there in the doorway with
the water pistol pointing at his face. He shrugged and put up his hands.
Heimlich's wife gave him a small grudging laugh. She threw the water pis–
tol into a drawer and pushed the drawer closed and picked up her cigarette
from the ashtray on the desk.
"Sit down ," she said. "\ thought you were the asshole
r
live with."
"No ma'am." Mick sat down. "Just the asshole who works for him."
"Did he send you in to see if the little woman is stil l pissed off?"
"\ haven't seen hilTI."
"Right."
"Rumor reaches me he's out of the building."
"Right, right."
"\ haven't seen him, Joyce."
"He sent you to tell me that?"
"He didn't send me anywhere or anything including he didn't send me
my paycheck he owes me is one thing he didn't send me for starters."
Heimlich's wife took a deep drag on her cigarette.
"Okay," she said finally, "so we're both getting fucked. At least you get
paid for it." She stood up abruptly and flipped her cigarette out the win–
dow. " I've got a great idea," she said. "Why don't you ask me out for a cup
of coffee and see what happens."
