KFC Mashed Potatoes

Flash Fiction February - Day 9 - A Wolf in Our Midst

I’m sitting at this folding table in the back of a warehouse that looks like it was built to store Lucky Luciano’s rum. They hung these fluorescent lights, ya know, the kind that make every shadow on the wall look like a pine beetle. It’s giving me the creeps, let me tell ya.

But let me tell ya what’s even creepier. This sensitivity training thing. Some judge made The Don do it after he called a witness a name that didn’t meet courtroom decorum. The Don finished the classes, came out with a certificate, and decided the whole organization needed to get enlightened too. So here we are. Four of us. Becoming better people.

There’s me, of course.

Then The Vessel. He’s sitting in two chairs because one chair is just a stiletto when you’re built like a landfill in a Hawaiian shirt. This guy is huge, crumbly. Eats anything that doesn’t run away. Right now, he’s clawing through a sack of pork rinds, every crunch sounding like chewing gravel, crumbs are drifting down his front like protein snow.

Then there’s Natasha. Beautiful. Like a loaded gun is beautiful. All sweet sauce and honey-goo Russian accent, right up until she slides that dagger between your ribs and takes your wallet on the way out. Femme fatale. Fits perfect. She’s femme. You’re fatale. I wouldn’t take her to the movies if ya know what I mean.

And Frank. Frank is just weird. He wants to be crafty, surreptitious, all that. But he’s an idiot. He tries to hide behind a potted plant right now. The plant is shaking like it’s got Parkinson’s. Every so often you hear a little thud and a whispered curse. That’s Frank adjusting his position. Crazy Frank couldn’t hide in a linen closet if you gave him a sheet.

The trainer is Valerie. She smiles like she believes in people. Like she thinks we’re all one group hug away from fixing everything. She starts with ground rules. Safe space. I statements. Confidentiality. I nod. I’m good at confidentiality. It’s my job.

A couple hours in, Valerie nods like we just cured cancer with our feelings. She passes out worksheets. “Write down one assumption you’ve made about someone this week.”

The Vessel stares at the paper like it’s a pineapple pizza, then says out loud, “A dog food commercial made me cry last week.” Natasha writes in perfect cursive. Cyrillic, of course. Frank’s worksheet stays blank except for a little doodle of a question mark in the corner. I’m here on The Don’s orders to “take deez three mugwumps out - don’t let ‘em leave da room.” Based on my observations, my errant assumption was that I am the only one with those instructions.

We talk about unconscious bias. Microaggressions. Creating inclusion. Valerie keeps saying “tremendous growth” like she’s watching flowers bloom in a graveyard. I keep thinking about the vial in my pocket.

Lunch break comes. Valerie claps her hands. “KFC in the back! Help yourselves.”

The smell hits like a warm, greasy wave. Buckets appear. The Vessel is already moving, a slow-motion avalanche. He grabs two buckets, starts building a fried-chicken fortress on his plate. Natasha glides over, takes one polite scoop of everything. Frank crawls out from behind the plant, knocks over a stack of napkins, rights them, knocks them over again, and still fills a plate.

They all go for the mashed potatoes. Of course they do. KFC mashed potatoes aren’t food. They’re some kind of pale, gluey substance that defies hunger and reason. Lumpy in places. Smooth in others. Inescapable. Like gravity. Or taxes. I spiked them while Vessel built his fortress. Nobody skips them. You look at them and think, “I don’t need that.” Then you take a spoonful anyway.

The Vessel shovels them in like he’s filling a crater. Natasha eats them with detached elegance. Frank gets gravy on his sleeve and licks it off without thinking.

I hang back. I take a drumstick—golden, crispy, perfect.

The Vessel is on his second helping. Natasha is methodical. Frank is eating potatoes off the table because he dropped his spoon and doesn’t want to bend down.

It doesn’t take long.

The Vessel coughs once, deep, like a foghorn with a cold. “These potatoes,” he says, “they got a kick.” Then he puts his face into the bucket.

Natasha’s hand freezes on her dagger. She looks at me. “You,” she whispers, scattering vile Russian curses. She slides sideways like a curtain falling.

Frank staggers out from behind the projector. He clutches his throat, knocks over the flip chart, does a slow-motion pirouette, and drops. His last word is “shadows,” which I think is supposed to mean something.

Valerie screams and runs. I don’t blame her.

I finish my drumstick. It’s good. Real good. Then I stand up, brush crumbs off my shirt, walk outside.

A black car is waiting. Engine idling low. An austere guy in expensive shades “invites” me in the back.

“Don,” I say, “you ole devil snake, you got me there.”

No anger. Just business. “Watch the hair, there asshole! I’m gettin in…”