Doug McDougal yawned and sat up in bed. His girlfriend was already up. “Morning, Sleepy Head,” she said walking in.

“Morning,” he said, getting out of bed.

“I thought that, before work, you could come with me this morning,” she said hopefully, “to Madame Shantel.”

“Aw, Leela, you know I don’t believe in that psychic crap,” he answered, already picking out his suit for the day.

“Pleeeease,” Leela begged. “Come this once and I’ll never bother you about it again.”

“Promise?” he asked.

“Promise,” Leela answered.

“Alright,” Doug gave in.

“Yay,” Leela hugged him. “You won’t be sorry.”

After he’d showered, dressed, and eaten, Doug drove with Leela to her psychic’s apartment. It was a small little room with bead curtains hung all around. In the center was round table with tarot cards on it. There were lamps hanging in the corners of the room, giving off a soft orange glow.

As they entered, a woman in her fifties emerged from behind one of the beaded curtains. She was draped in robes and beads.. “Ah, Leela,” she said, taking a seat at the table. “Please, sit down. You as well, Doug.”

Doug scoffed, “Is that supposed to impress me? Leela probably mentioned me a hundred times.” He took a seat next to Leela who smacked his arm.

“I sense you are a mistrusting soul,” Madame Shantel said.

Doug scoffed again but bit back a reply as Leela gave him a look.

“I will read you first,” Madame Shantel said to Doug. “Hold out your hand.”

Doug rolled his eyes, but complied.

Madame Shantel studied his hand carefully. “First, the past. When you were a child you were afraid of the dark. Every night you hid under the covers to escape the monsters.”

“Oh come on! Every kid does that!” Doug exclaimed.

“The present,” Madame Shantel continued. “You are unhappy with your current job and want to quit, but you are afraid that you will not succeed at anything else.”

“Half the people in this city would say that!” Doug shouted.

“The future.” She studied his hand for the longest time, occasionally saying, “Hmm,” or “Ahh,” Finally she raised her head. “Today….you will have a bad day.”

“That’s it! ‘You will have a bad day’? Couldn’t you get a little more general? Of course I’m gonna have a bad day! I just shelled out twenty bucks to have you sit here, look at my hand, and tell me what I already know!!!” Doug stormed out of the apartment, leaving Leela to call a cab.

Doug drove to his first job, showing a house to a couple looking to buy it. The house was about twenty miles outside of the city. When he arrived, the couple was already there looking over the housed.

After he’d shown them around, the man smiled. “We’ll take it,” he said. “Is it okay if we put down a deposit for now?”

“Sure,” Doug answered. The man wrote a check for ten thousand dollars.

Driving back, Doug smiled. Despite the psychic’s prediction, his day was off to a wonderful start. “What a phony,” he laughed. There was a bump, bump, as his car drove over the railroad tracks. Then another bump and his car stopped. Doug turned the key: nothing. The engine was dead.

Doug sighed and got out. Opening the hood, he tried to find the problem. “This shouldn’t be happening,” he muttered. The car was brand new. A red sports car he’d been saving since college to buy. He’d just gotten it last week.

Doug felt a slight vibration beneath his feet. “Oh, no,” he said. “It can’t be!” Just then, a train rounded the corner.

Doug looked frantically around under the hood of the car. Suddenly, he spotted the problem. A wire coming from the battery had come loose. Doug grabbed for it as the train approached. “Come on,” he said. The train came closer and the wire still eluded his reach. “No,” he mumbled. “No, no, no.”

Finally, he reached the wire and reconnected it…just as the train collided with the car. Doug jumped back, narrowly missing getting hit by the train himself.

“No!” he yelled. The couple’s check, all his papers, not to mention his new sports car, were now gone for good.

Doug searched his pockets for his cell phone, then remembered he’d left it on the passenger’s seat of his car. He recalled a gas station two miles back.

As soon as the train passed, he began walking. A little ways up the road, Doug thought he heard a wolf howl. He sped up and tripped, landing in a giant mud puddle. On his knees in the mud, Doug was sure he heard a wolf howl, then an answering one. He got up and began running.

An hour later, Doug jogged into the gas station cold, muddy, wet, and exhausted. The attendant gave him a funny look. “Do you have a phone?” Doug asked.

“Yeah, inside,” the man answered.

Doug called a cab and sat down to wait. The attendant kept looking over at him. “What?” Doug finally asked.

“What happened to you, mister?”

“Well, I had…car troubles, I fell in a mud puddle, and then I got chased by wolves all the way here.”

The man burst into laughter. “Mister, there ain’t no wolves in these parts, that’s just the wind blowin’ through the trees funny. That’s what makes that sound; happens all the time ’round here.”

Doug failed to see the humor in this and rested his forehead in his hands until the cab came. When he got in, the driver’s eyes widened. “I fell in a puddle,” Doug said before the driver even asked.

They rode most of the way in silence, but the man finally said, “Cheer up, my friend everyone has bad days.”

“I’m not having a bad day!!” Doug yelled. “Just because I had a few isolated misfortunes doesn’t mean I’m having a bad day.”

The man stopped the car just as they reached the outer part of the city. “You are most rude, sir. I will thank you to exit my vehicle.”

“Fine!” Doug got out, slamming the door. “How much do I owe you?”

“Seventy-five dollars,” the man answered.

“What! We drove ten miles!” Doug exclaimed.

“Fifty dollars to clean my seats.”

“What? Fifty dollars to take a rag and wipe the seat off!?!”

“They are leather seats they must be specially cleaned.”

“Oh, leather my–”

“Sir, if you will not pay, I will have to call the authorities.”

“This is highway robbery!” Doug said, digging into his pockets for his wallet. He checked his front pockets; it wasn’t there. He checked his back pockets; not there either. He checked his jacket pocket; still nothing. Doug remembered that he’d thrown his wallet in his briefcase that morning. His briefcase had been in his car. “Uh….” Doug bolted.

He ran down the street and into an alley. Finally, he ducked behind a building and rested, sure that he’d lost the angry cab driver. He realized that he was completely lost himself. Doug chose a random alley and wandered down it.

“Hey mister,” a man called out. The man had been sitting against a brick wall. He now stood in front of Doug. His clothes were tattered and his hair was matted and unwashed. This man was obviously homeless. “Can you spare some change, mister?” the man asked.

“No,” Doug replied.

“Oh, come on, just a buck. You gotta have a buck.”

“I don’t have any money,” Doug said.

The man whipped out a knife. Three more men appeared from their hiding places. “Then, you won’t mind if we take a look,” the man said.

Two of the men grabbed his jacket and ripped it off. The other man searched him while the first man held the knife threateningly. One of the men searching his jacket threw it down. “There’s nothing there,” he announced.

The man searching him stood up. “He ain’t got nothing.”

“Boy mister, did you pick a bad day to get mugged,” the man with the knife said.

The man who had been searching Doug punched him in the gut, suddenly.

“I’m not having a bad day,” Doug grunted.

“What’d ya say?” the man with the knife asked as he kicked Doug.

The two men behind Doug hauled him back up. The man with the knife leaned closer as Doug growled, “I’m not having a bad day!!!” Doug kicked the knife out of the man’s hand and slugged the other men. Then, he sprinted away down another alley.

The men pursued him, chasing him up one alley, then across the street and down another alley. Doug rounded a corner, knowing the men were only a few seconds behind. He spotted a dumpster and climbed in. He gagged at the smell and the filth surrounding him. Doug heard the sound of running and shouting as the men passed his hiding place. After a few minutes of silence, Doug peered out; nobody was there.

Doug climbed back out of the dumpster. He was filthy, he smelled, his stomach hurt from where he’d been punched and kicked, and his hand hurt from hitting his attackers. Doug sank down next to the dumpster. “I’m not having a bad day,” he said to himself.

At that moment, something caught his eye. It was a briefcase hidden under the dumpster. Puzzled, Doug pulled it out. He opened it, revealing stacks of neatly arranged hundred dollar bills. Doug gasped, then grinned. His day wasn’t turning out so bad after all!

Doug stood up and began to walk away with the briefcase in hand. Suddenly, a car pulled down the alley and stopped. Two men got out. They were dressed in suits and armed with pistols. “Hey!” one yelled, spotting the briefcase. “Stop!”

Doug turned to run, but froze as a shot hit the wall beside him. He dropped the briefcase and put up his hands. The men hauled him roughly to the car.

They drove in silence. The men regarded him with stony hatred. Finally, the car stopped in front of an Italian restaurant. Doug was dragged inside and forced down at a table between two menacing looking men. The man with the briefcase walked over to a corner table where an older man was sitting, surrounded by bodyguards. The man with the briefcase handed it to the older man and whispered something to him. The older man nodded.

The younger man who’d brought the briefcase walked over to Doug. “Mr. Machiovelli would like to speak with you,” he said.

Doug was ushered over to the corner table and sat down in front of the old man. “Joe tells me you tried to seal from us,” the man said.

“I-I’m sorry,” Doug said. “It’s just that my car got wrecked, so I had to take a cab, and I didn’t have any money so the cab driver chased me. Then I got mugged, but I didn’t have any money, so the muggers chased me, and I had to hide in a dumpster. I found the briefcase and I-I guess I just wasn’t thinking.” Doug hung his head.

“Well, it sounds like you are having a bad day, Mr….”

“McDougal,” Doug supplied.

“Mr. McDougal,” Machiovelli continued. “However this does not excuse the insult you have done me by trying to steal my hard earned money.”

“I-I’m sorry, sir,” Doug stuttered. “Please, just let me go and it won’t ever happen again.”

Mr. Machiovelli regarded him for a moment, then said, “I believe you Mr. McDougal. Unfortunately, I cannot let you go free now that you’ve seen our drop point. I’m truly sorry about this.” Machiovelli waved his hand two men hauled Doug up.

“No!” Doug struggled in their grips as they hauled him outside. A bike messenger zipped by, clipping one of Doug’s captors. It gave him just enough of a diversion to wrench free! He ran down the sidewalk, bullets echoing behind him.

Doug ran until he was too exhausted to run anymore. He sank down against a building and rested. After catching his breath, he stood up and began to take notice of his surroundings. Across the street, he caught sight of a cop car.

“Hey!” he yelled, running up to it. The officer rolled down the window. “Officer,” Doug said. “You have to help me, I’m being chased by armed goons. They work for some guy named Machiovelli.”

“Get in,” the officer said. Doug got in the back and the other officer started the car. “So, you got involved with the Machiovelli crime family?” the officer, Officer Riley, according to his name tag, asked. “Why don’t you tell us about it?”

Doug took a deep breath. “First, I got mugged, but I didn’t have any money, so they were going to kill me. I managed to escape by hiding inside a dumpster. I found a briefcase full of money underneath it. Machiovelli’s goons caught me with it. Then, Mr. Machiovelli ordered them to kill me.”

“Then, you escaped and found us?” the officer asked. Doug nodded. “Lucky for you we were close by.”

“How much money was in the briefcase?” the other officer, Officer Kelley, asked.

“I-I don’t know,” Doug said, confused.

“Do you know where Machiovelli is now?” Riley asked.

“Uh, they took me to a restaurant to meet him. He might still be there.”

“What was the name of the restaurant?”

“I don’t remember,” Doug replied.

“Could you give us directions?”

“I think so.”

The first officer turned to his partner. “What do you think?”

“I think Mr. Giotticello would be very pleased if we took out his competition, and he doesn’t have to know about the money.”

“Wait a minute, who’s Mr. Giotticello?” Doug asked.

“Our boss,” Kelley answered.

Riley turned around and aimed a gun at Doug. “See, law enforcement doesn’t pay very well, so my partner and I took on another job. We work for Mr. Giotticello.”

Doug groaned. “Another crime lord?”

“Looks like you’re having a bad day. Now give us directions to the restaurant.”

With Doug’s directions, they pulled up in front of the restaurant ten minutes later. The two officers got out. Riley opened Doug’s door, but kept the gun trained on him. “Don’t try anything,” he warned.

They walked into the restaurant together. Riley had a firm grip on his arm and the gun pressed to his back. As they entered, Mr. Machiovelli’s four bodyguards jumped up and drew their weapons. Mr. Machiovelli rose slowly and drew his own weapon. “I know you,” he said to the two cops. “You two work for Mr. Giotticello. How dare you come into one of my establishments!”

Without warning, the cops shot two of Machiovelli’s men. By the time that the other two reacted, the cops had their guns aimed at them. Suddenly, the door burst open and two more men joined the cops. The cops smiled. “Well,” Riley said, “looks like you’re outnumbered Mr. Machiovelli. Hand over the money.” He indicated the briefcase on the table.

Machiovelli glared, but tossed the briefcase at them. It landed a few feet in front of them.

“Get it,” Kelley commanded Doug, giving him a shove.

As Doug bent down to retrieve the money, the door to the back room opened suddenly and five more armed men filed in. “Now who is outnumbered?” Mr. Machiovelli said, smugly.

Instead of answering, the four cops dove behind the nearest furniture. Two ducked behind the bar, while Riley and Kelley overturned tables for cover. Machiovelli’s men began shooting and the cops returned fire. Doug grabbed the briefcase and crawled for the nearest table.

He cowered as they exchanged fire. The crooked cops took out two of Machiovelli’s men. Then Machiovelli took out one of the cops. Doug looked to the door; it was only a few feet away. He took a deep breath and crawled as quickly as he could. As he scrambled out the door, he felt a searing pain in his arm. Outside, he leaned against the building and checked his arm. He had indeed been shot. It looked like the bullet had only nicked him.

Doug stood up slowly. As he walked away, Doug couldn’t help peeking in the window of the restaurant. Riley was on the floor, probably dead. Kelley jumped out and shot at Machiovelli, hitting him twice in the chest. Machiovelli’s two remaining goons gunned the man down quickly, but not before he managed to shoot them both. Everyone in the restaurant was on the floor now, either dead or dying. Doug hurried away.

Maybe my day didn’t turn out so bad after all, he thought as he walked home. All of the Italian mobsters are dead, so no one will be after me. And I only got a flesh wound. My day could’ve been worse. He rounded a corner and was relieved to see his apartment building. He was so happy to finally be home.

Doug raced up the steps and to his door. “Leela!” he called, throwing the door open. The apartment was dark. “Leela?” he called again. His eyes fell on a letter lying on the kitchen table. He picked it up. It was in Leela’s handwriting:

Doug,

Madame Shantel read our love fortune this morning after you left. She says that we just aren’t meant to be together. I’m sorry, but I’m leaving you. Goodbye.

Love,

Leela

Doug crumpled the letter up and threw it. It skittered across the floor and landed near the door. At least I have the money, he thought.

Just then, the door bust open revealing the Riley and Kelley.

“But-but I saw you die!” Doug spluttered.

Kelley unbuttoned his shirt, revealing a bulletproof vest. Riley drew a gun and pointed it at Doug.

Doug just dropped his head to the table in defeat. “I’m having a bad day.”

End