The Minja
I’m a city inspector for the town of A_____. It’s a small city. I’m the only one.
I liked the guy okay. He had just moved here. He obviously didn’t know what he was getting into. He thought an inspector was going to solve all his problems. I just go through protocol. For the city. Not for him. But he asked me questions. And I understand his concerns. I told him so. I asked him if he had installed that sliding glass door. It had nothing to do with the repiping job, and I think my question threw him off. He was looking at me like I had something more to say. And I did. I said because it wasn’t there when I did the inspection on the roof a year ago. He said that was before he had purchased the property. I knew for a fact it wasn’t inspected. I think that was when it dawned on him how small this operation was.
But I set his mind at ease. I knew he had done nothing wrong. He was a good guy, you could tell. It’s not like I would remember every addition he’d ever done to the house, but I let him know I was not supposed to tell him he didn’t always have to get an inspection from the city. You know what I mean? (Wink, wink.) Technically, I would have to report him if I was driving around the area three months from now and noticed new windows and new AC units without his ever getting an inspection. But I wasn’t like that. Unless I needed to be. And I let him know that, under my breath, as they say — saying without saying.
I guess he must have took it to heart. The City of A_____ was even smaller than some shopping malls, but even so, I hadn’t been around that place for almost a year. It was a cul de sac, and if there was no reason for me to go around there, I wasn’t going to do it. But the place had changed. I checked the roster on TK, and he hadn’t inspected a single thing since the repiping job he had done that time.
I was knocking on his door. He didn’t recognize me at first. He was treating me like a door-to-door jobber. I wasn’t going to take it personally, but it started us on the wrong foot. I nudged him inside and closed the door behind me. This is what you get for being a nice guy: a complete turnaround just one year later.
I could see recognition flipping its switch behind his eyes. But he didn’t say anything. He was waiting for me to do all the talking. And I had a lot to say. I said, “Windows, shutters, AC units,” and I was angling my head to get a better look at the kitchen and continued, “counter top, and patio roof in the back.” I asked him what he had to say about that.
The interview was over as soon as it started. I told him to stop. He was sniveling. It made me uneasy. I took a raincheck on his past behavior and told him I’d be back. Walking out of that little house, I was wondering why they did it. Was it the way I came off? You know, tough guy but a nice guy. I didn’t want it that way. But it was in my nature. No one knew that other side of me, the one that I called the real me.
At night, my baseball cap was back in the dresser, and my blue jeans were no longer the workman variety. I now had on my indigo ones that were tight and made of stretch material. I had my black pullover. I was going out, but not as an inspector. Nobody knew this, but I was a minja. A minja is like a ninja, except we don’t dress in the same garb. We are without a doubt the same thing, but minjas don’t advertise their powers by dressing like some kind of yahoo. We just sport dark clothes and go and prowl around in the night. I wish I had a better definition for it, but I think most people can get the general idea.
My first target was obviously him. I was going to disassemble every exterior piece so that he knew I meant business. I would work on the interior ones when I knew the whole neighborhood was deep in the realm of dreams and nightmares, tackling the obstacles of unreality. The interior job was only for the kitchen counter, but if he had anything else, it would have to go as well. God forbid if he had any form of home defense. The last guy to pull a shotgun on me had it firmly placed up his posterior before I pulled the trigger.
You see, this is how it is. The city would never do this. As I said, it was too small of an operation. Somebody had to look out for them. It was not like I was defending freedom or anything like that, but I did kind of feel like a superhero — kind of, but not exactly. It’s like if I was Peter Parker, I’d be Spiderman lending my talents to the Daily Bugle (without benefit of the costume), and they would have me under contract, like a bounty hunter making sure the interests of the newspaper were met against the random costumed clown, until the day the contract no longer followed the rules of my moral sensibilities.