Flash Fiction #5

This week, I'm participating in the Flash Fiction Project founded by +Becket Moorby. Each day, there's an image for inspiration and we all write a piece. I'm excited about participating just for the promise that I will, indeed, write something every day. 

Today's image is:

Image courtesy of Rakesh Rocky via Flickr Creative Commons (Attribution Link)

Here's my piece:

Look at him up there. Really somebody now, huh? With his club patch and his shoulders all pushed back. The press loves him. They love to tell us how he grew up poor and worked his way through university cleaning swimming pools. A real rags to riches story. American dream shit.

They leave out the part when he was terrible at it.  Half the time he was late, the other half of the time he didn't show up at all.  They do the work when you're not at home, you know, so sometimes we thought he'd been then when he hadn't. A dirty pool doesn't show right away. 

We fired him when my little sister ended up with a bacterial infection that we traced to the swimming pool he was supposed to be maintaining for us.  I saw him sometime after that and threatened to kick his ass. He deserved it--him not doing his job sent my little sister to the hospital! But my friends tugged me away before I could get a good swing in. Probably a good thing. I'd have felt better then, but it would've opened a whole different can of worms.

His side of the story? I've heard it. It's not about race or class. I couldn't care less what color he is or where his family came from before they lived here. I hate him, but it's not because of any of that stuff. I just say that if you take on a job, you do it do the best of your ability. I don't really care that he can run fast or that he's good with the ball. To me, he's just the guy I fired. I hope he gets his ass kicked.