The Tomato Juice Scandal

Rupert Smithson looked down at his sparkling gold watch, muttering quietly under his breath. It ticked unusually slowly this morning — none of them had shown up to the meeting yet. Was this not unacceptable? Didn’t they know he knew where they lived? Right down to the color of their doors?

He was standing in his office, or rather, swaying slightly from side to side, — a short, fat man, bearing the likeness of a toad, and breathing heavily as usual. The doctor had suggested being on his feet more often, rather than sitting. Maybe a walk in the mornings or evenings every once in a while. Smithson had laughed him down, asserting that his weight had nothing to do with his lack of movement — he was always chasing that profit margin! Ha! Congestive heart failure, a few weeks later, disagreed quite… well, heartily.

His navy blue three-piece suit, a size too small (he believed it acted as a motivator of sorts), encapsulated his fleshy form with difficulty: the buttons strained to remain intact, his collar nearly choked him now, resulting in a constant oxygen-depleted look, which, over the past few weeks, led to the nickname, “The Purple Monster.” It used to be “Asshole,” but the employees felt like he deserved something special, a custom name-tag. His abnormally large head, usually a shining bald orb, donned a bowler hat that he declared was for “warmth.” Really, he had just started growing hair and felt touchy about it; his other nickname was “The Egg.”

Smithson’s small, squinty, gray eyes slyly pierced people’s souls. He loved crowds. He loved making eye contact with any weak characters he could weed out in them; he’d leave them quivering, or, more often, looking very awkward. He was nearsighted, however, and refused to purchase glasses, which made his hobby somewhat difficult. He would not ‘indulge’ in spectacles as a result of childhood torment. Another nickname he had acquired in youth was that of “Golf Ball Gertrude” from his “dimples that were more numerous than those on a golf ball,” and his association with Gilly Gertrude, who had the biggest glasses in town. Cold, cruel days.

His mouth usually turned up into a smile. Not a genuine one, of course. But a smile, nonetheless. When alone, though, his resting expression was stern and unforgiving, much like an angry cat. A very pudgy angry cat who preferred to sharpen his claws on the furniture, and sulked in the outdoors.

And much like an angry cat, Smithson growled and swiped at coffee mugs; this was the perfect occasion to break something. All members were late to the board meeting! Alright, he knew some of them would intentionally skip the monthly confrontation, but all of them? All at once? What were they, on strike?!

Maybe they’re right, Rupert mused, thoughtfully stroking his clean-shaven chins. My company is fading… the negative markups to increase sales are dooming us. But I can’t go wholesale, nobody buys that much! And the retail just can’t keep up with where I want us to be… Damn those chumps, where are they? I NEED TO YELL AT SOMEBODY!

Smithson Incorporated was a tomato juice producer and distributor. The business had been his father’s, and his father’s father’s, and his father’s father’s father’s before him, making it one of the oldest tomato juice companies in the world. Its expiration date, however, loomed closer and closer. Sales were lower than ever in the town of Mulberry, his company was in debt by the millions, and they had more tomato juice than they could sell. Employment was quickly going down the drain, as people thought they could and should be paid like the higher ups.

Ha! Baloney! He took a seat. Better rest a while, he puffed to himself.

* * *

Jim Stiles, Rupert Smithson’s most trusted (and least paid) assistant, hurriedly walked into the all-window conference room, sweating and flustered, barely hanging onto his bulging briefcase with his right hand. His left hand held his outdated flip phone, which he promptly dropped when he turned to close the glass door behind him. Did he hear a crack? A few expeditious curses rose to his thin lips. Couldn't anything go right today?

He was a tall, lanky figure, towering over many, even with his slouch. He had a short, spiky shock of white hair at the ripe old age of 32, which he attributed to his primordial wisdom (many were not in accord with this sentiment). He had a hooked nose, which sniffed a lot, coupled with abnormally large nostrils. Stiles’ skin had a sallow, leathery quality, a weathered look that enhanced his under-eye bags. His voice was soft and silky, contrasting with his employer’s bark. His spindly limbs were clothed in expensive silk, slightly faded and overworn. Many described him as cold-blooded and snake-like. He had appeared at the company, almost thirteen years ago, with a very mysterious background: there were stories of him being a very talented thief whose partners had turned on him and he had to flee the public eye, the conviction that he had actually fallen into a cooking vat of an occult ‘potion’ when he was younger, and one very famous rumor that it was actually he, Jim Stiles, who owned the company, and oversaw it from a disguised position.

“Better late than never, they say,” Smithson bared a vicious crocodile smile.

“Those w-were the board m-me-members,” Stiles spluttered hastily, pointing at his phone. “Before I dropped my ph-ph-phone right there, I was t-trying t-to convince them t-to—” Stiles began stuttering incomprehensibly. Those who witnessed Stiles in front of Smithston were certain that there was definitely no power struggle going on there… Stiles, the CEO? Har-har.

“To what, man? Spit it out!” Smithson promptly reached for a pair of scissors to throw at him. He missed appallingly, and Stiles ran to the far end of the room to pick them up.

The overflowing briefcase opened very slowly, with obvious hesitancy and very shaky hands. Stiles sniffed a couple of times, and took out a formal-looking, laminated document, with a line of signatures at the bottom of important looking paragraphs. Smithson looked uneasy. What was this?

“Th-this was i-in the m-m-mail, s-s-sir.” The words poured from him expeditiously, and as he perched in a chair, and after a sniff he discreetly added, “Th-they quit, s-sir.”

A quiet, rather punctuated silence permeated the sunlight-filled room.

“They what?” Smithson’s usual snarl was a dangerously soft query.

“The board members quit, sir,” Stiles repeated, very clearly this time, and he closed his eyes, his mouth moving silently in a quick prayer. Hesitant as ever, he retracted the resignation form very slowly, perhaps afraid that any sudden movements would result in his death.

Another pause ensued.

“Can they do that?” Smithson’s small piggy eyes darted around the room wildly.

Stiles stiffened, licking his lips before replying. “I m-mean, sir, th-they’d have to s-s-submit—”

“Shut up!” Smithson thundered. He didn't really want any answers from his sniffing secretary. What he wanted was somewhat violent, and which we shall exclude from the narration. The room’s atmosphere was dark and accompanied by a sweeping chill the sunlight could not dispel. The bulbous figure — not the yoga ball sitting in the corner, mind you — went silent. A stillness that made Stiles shiver and sniff in apprehension. His mouth moved in prayer again, the hands moving furiously behind his back on a beaded rosary he saved for occasions like this, which happened awfully frequently, now that he thought about it. Smithson’s pudgy hands were clenched into fists, his nostrils were a-flare, his labored breathing became heavier, much like an asthmatic before collapsing from oxygen deprivation.

“Take the day off, Stiles. I’ll call you tomorrow.” You could see the glass of gin in his baby-like hands already.

“But sir—” Stiles began in what he hoped sounded like a loyal protest, hoping for nothing more than to disappear from that room.

“I’ll. Call. You. Tomorrow,” Smithson echoed, lowering his voice in admonition, saying each word in a slow, deliberate manner. He believed he sounded perilous, but really, Stiles thought his boss sounded like he was on the verge of defecation.

“Very well, s-sir.” Stiles stood from his swivel chair, grateful to be breathing.

Then he was moving swiftly to the exit, quickly stowing away his miraculous rosary. The swollen briefcase was being tucked under his left lanky arm, and he turned as he closed the door behind him. “I-I’ll see you t-tomo—”

“GET OUT!” An ‘I’m-Your-Boss-Not-Your-Buddy’ mug shattered against the wall near the door. Another terrible shot.

Stiles didn’t wait for an improved aim to grace his frail form. As quick as a flash, the twig-like man escaped. The day off! He marveled, it’s like losing a dime and finding a dollar!

* * *

That evening, in a hazy drunken stupor, Smithson made some important calls.

Calls that would save his business.

Calls that might have been illegal.

It was all okay; he paid a lot of money to keep his people happy.

It was natural… Hell, it was organic!

* * *

The following morning, Smithson decided to take it easy. He was alive, the company was alive, and he felt amazing. The sun was climbing higher and higher, and he felt no obligation to get up. From his large Victorian bed Smithson could see faint streaks of white vapor against the clear azure. There were always planes nowadays, and the birds had long since stopped flying in front of this patch of sky. And that was okay, he contemplated. He'd rather them not anyway — they had chosen to learn that the hard way. Instead, he could put on some natural forest sounds. And as the music played (a very rare occurrence), sleeping in, he had decided, was a healthy thing to do on occasion. People that constantly slept in were lazy; and he, supreme businessman, was not lazy.

After a rejuvenating shower, he breakfasted heartily on pancakes, and left his marble-tiled kitchen in the pristine condition he preferred everything to be.

Sitting himself down rather heavily on his antique pink chintz chair, he crinkled open the day’s newspaper, his gold watch glinting heavily in the sun. The paper was wafer-thin and, after a while of constant folding and unfolding, was almost falling apart. Nothing in the papers! Nothing yet anyway. Time to settle in and get comfortable and switch to his relaxation chair: if he decided to lean back with his newspaper (which he did, naturally), you were unable to see anything but the top of his head — creased, spotted, and with very little curly orange hair, the texture of his skin almost like that one would find on a ginger elephant. "The Egg" was not quite an accurate moniker. Much like his head, his leather seat was old and plushy, with small cracks in the brown material. It was angled facing away from the sun, towards the other large, clerestory windows in his condo. He had acquired it with his company — another luxury he was not willing to give up.

He lurked again through the cheap gazette. Nothing important was in the papers. Yet.

He smiled to himself, a small triumphant smirk that reserved for days when he slept in and devised cunning schemes.

* * *

“Sir? W-we’re having difficulty k-k-keeping up with all these o-orders,” Stiles popped his head into Smithson’s office. Only his head, mind, since he felt it best that as little surface area should encroach upon, as the employees called it, ‘The Den’.

The de— excuse me, the office was very large, much bigger than the ballroom-like conference room, and very well lit, thanks to the large western and southern-facing windows. The wooden floor had an extravagant carpet in the middle, made from traditionally embroidered and dyed wool, decorated with intricate blue mandala patterns. There was even a crystal chandelier hanging above Smithson’s desk, which gave the best light to write letters of termination and suspension without pay. Paradise comes in many forms.

Smithson slowly rose from his highly polished mahogany desk, simultaneously dropping a call with an employee that had made an order for fifteen gallons of tomato juice. Things were going just as planned.

“I know, Stiles,” Smithson bared a grin so wide it could have been compared to that of Carroll’s Cheshire Cat. “Did you expect any less?” The plump man wobbled over to the heavy wooden door, straightening an already-straight bowtie.

“N-no, sir, o-of course n—” Stiles’ head was slowly and unceremoniously pushed out by Smithson’s reaching sausage fingers.

“Get back to work. Those calls won’t pick themselves up,” Smithson whispered nastily, with a plastered, sumptuous smile, right before he clicked the door shut. This was another one of his favorite hobbies — one that didn’t require eyeglasses.

Smithson’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He fumbled to see who it was — ah, a familiar number!

“Oh, good morning, Janice! How gracious of you to call,” Smithson simpered, “No, really, very spectacular of you to check up on me! And right after your resignation… so considerate,” his voice dripped with honeyed derision.

An angry voice buzzed over the line. Smithson “uh-huh-ed” and “mhh-ed” with feigned surprise. His expression was that of disdainful scorn. Until he wore his triumphant smirk again.

“Skunks? In Mulberry? You don’t say…”

Smithson briefly muted his phone, teetering over to open his door.

“Stiles! Get in here quick!”

Stiles listened to instructions well. That was the only reason he was still employed. Right in the middle of a conversation with a potential customer, he cut the phone and rushed over to Smithson’s office, shoes clicking and clacking down the wide hallway.

Smithson closed the door behind Stiles, silently, yet frantically, gesturing at his giraffe of an assistant to sit with him on the soft carpet. The latter obliged with a pause of misgiving, lowering himself to a squat.

The call was put on speaker, wresting a suppressed sigh from Stiles. He had better things to be doing. However, this was a stroke of brilliance Stiles had not expected from his employer; did this madman really condemn Mulberry to tomato baths?

“Is this about the skunks, sir?” Stiles asked quietly, in a matter-of-fact tone, a small smile tugging at his lips. Smithson nodded his head profusely, a few tears of laughter in his eyes.

Employer and employee shared a look, full of impish mischief, as the voice over the phone threatened and screeched. Smithson’s smile widened even more. One could see the glass of wine in his hand already, raised in celebration.