November 1999.
Three months after returning to New York from Montana.
Taylor stood in the aisle of a 7-Eleven on one of the roughest streets in Brooklyn. He wore the usual expressionless look on his face as he knelt over a cardboard box. He reached into his jeans' pocket and pulled out a razor blade, which he used to open the box, revealing a bunch of cans of soup covered in plastic. He cut the plastic, tore it apart, put the razor back in his pocket and stood up straight with a few cans of soup in hand. He took one can, checked the expiration date, and then set it down on the shelf in its proper spot.
He wore a t-shirt that read '7-Eleven' and he felt ridiculous, but this was his job, and he was lucky to have had one at all.
Taylor had done as Matty did and left the whole mobster life behind, but with his criminal record, being on parole, and his last name, it hadn't been easy to find a regular job. He'd tried over fifteen spots in Brooklyn - gas stations and bodegas - and had been turned down by all of them. The manager at that particular 7-11 only hired him out of desperation, and Taylor didn't understand how a 7-11 in the middle of Brooklyn was desperate for employees until he started working there. It became clear over time that it was because nobody could tolerate the ill-mannered boss.
"Reese!"
And there he was. The manager, Michael Gonzalez; an over-weight Spanish man a little older than Taylor. Taylor raised a brow and turned his head, looking over at him.
"You're still stocking?" Gonzalez asked in his Spanish accent, squinting at Taylor; irritation and annoyance in his voice.
"Just got here ten minutes ago," Taylor rumbled.
"Well, hold off a minute on the stocking, and get your ass in the bathroom. A customer complained that the toilet's not flushing and I just went in there and it's a fucking disaster," the man said.
Taylor pressed his lips together and made his way to the bathroom, and it was clear that nobody working there had touched it over the two days Taylor had off. The walls were written and drawn on ('suck my dick', phone numbers, drawings of penises and boobs could be seen) and they were stained with the worst you could imagine. The trash was so full that it was spilling out onto the floor; there was a banana peel in the corner and a used condom just behind the toilet. It smelled just about as good as it looked.
Taylor went over to the toilet, and because it hadn't been flushing, it was nearly filled to the brim with waste.
"Jesus," Taylor sighed, looking down at the toilet with dismay.
Taylor went to the back and found a pair of yellow, rubber gloves; then, he went to work. He removed most of what was left in the toilet, which had been just about the most disgusting thing he'd done in his life, and then lifted the tank lid to inspect. It turned out someone had messed with the lift chain and it'd come off the flapper.
'All of this and it's just the fuckin' chain,' Taylor thought. 'Fuckin' idiots.'
"Reese! Come on, hurry up!"
Taylor's heart started pounding in his chest at the sound of Gonzalez's voice; like nails on a chalkboard. He envisioned taking the tank lid and smashing it on the tiled floor, but he held himself back. He reminded himself how difficult it had been to get a job; he couldn't risk getting fired.
It left a bad taste in Taylor's mouth, knowing that Gonzalez was aware of that and it was probably why he had no issue pushing Taylor around in the first place.
"Come on! You have to get back to stocking, what are you doing?! We can't have you back here while there are customers out there looking for items that are nowhere to be found! We're losing money!" Gonzalez went on, hands flailing and spit spewing from his mouth.
"Just doin' what you told me to," Taylor responded, refusing to make eye contact with the older man. Both because he was in the middle of trying to reattach the chain, but also because he knew if he looked at the man, he might do something he'd regret.
"Yeah, well, I can't be following you around, I have to watch the register! You should know what to do by now!" Gonzalez continued.
"Ya want the toilet fixed or not?" Taylor snapped, and this time he raised his head, to give Gonzalez a threatening look.
"Keep doing what you're doing. Just do it faster," Gonzalez ordered.
"Takes as long as it takes," Taylor said, as patiently as he could.
"No, it takes as long as I tell you to take. I'm giving you five minutes to finish it up in here," Gonzalez said and with that, he turned around and left.
'I'm gonna kill this fuck,' Taylor thought, gritting his teeth together.
After fixing the chain, Taylor was able to flush the toilet. He proceeded with getting the toilet brush, and he started scrubbing away at the inside of the bowl. It took no longer than five minutes before he heard that voice once again calling out to him.
"You better be finished, or I'm-" Gonzalez began, and the remainder of Taylor's patience was thrown out the window.
"For fuck's sake, let me do my job!" he yelled. It wasn't enough that he was in the middle of dealing with literal shit, he had to deal with this guy's shit too, and he was done.
"Excuse me?" Gonzalez asked, brows raised and arms crossed over his chest.
"Let me do my job!" Taylor repeated, not one to back down. "I'd get it done a lot faster if you weren't breathin' down my neck every five fuckin' minutes!"
Taylor knew he was pushing it, but at that point, it was becoming hard to care. He'd been dealing with this for the past three weeks and he was reaching his breaking point.
"I wouldn't have to check on you every five minutes if you were doing things right!" Gonzalez retorted; face red and sweaty. When Taylor didn't respond, Gonzalez leaned back and shook his head back and forth, running his hand across his mouth.
"I knew I shouldn't have hired you. You know, my father warned me about you, said you'd be trouble. Guys like you don't know the meaning of hard work. You get everything handed to you, by striking fear into people. But I'm not scared of you. I'm not caving. I'm going to give it to you straight, and I'm going to tell you, that a fucking monkey could work faster than you! So quit whacking off or I'm -"
"That's it!" Taylor bellowed, and he rushed toward Gonzalez and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. The mistreatment, the disrespect - Taylor couldn't take it anymore. He'd never let anyone walk all over him before and he wasn't going to start now; he'd had it with Gonzalez and he was going to show the man who he was really dealing with.
"Woah, woah! Hey! What're you doing, man?! Let me go, mother fu-" Gonzalez cried, but Taylor pulled him into the bathroom and shoved his face down into the bowl of the toilet. Gonzalez's speech turned to bubbles, incomprehensible, as he struggled to get free. Taylor waited a long thirty seconds before he pulled the man's head back by his black, curly hair.
"Wish you let me do my job now, fucker?!" Taylor roared.
"¡Detener! ¡Detener! (Stop! Stop!)" Gonzalez shrieked, reverting to his first language in his fear as he gasped for breath.
Taylor shoved Gonzalez's face into the toilet one more time before pulling him out and throwing him against the trash barrel. It fell over, spilling its contents onto the floor and Gonzalez. Taylor took his rubber gloves off and threw them at the disheveled man.
"Get outta my store, culo! You're fired, don't come back, ever! I see your face ever again, and I'll call the police!" Gonzalez cried.
Taylor couldn't have left the store fast enough; swiping his hand across the counter and bringing gum, lighters and Slim Jims to the floor on his way out.