14 Fictional Positions

by Williamson, Eric Miles

  Marvin remembers his first encounter with Rhoda and her sack, the fateful day he interviewed her for the position his immediate superior (Rhoda’s second-cousin) in the main office had personally recommended, if not requested, he appoint her to. She entered the office sluggishly, indiligently, yet somehow with an air of procacity, her short frame seeming to creak and moan like an old dead tree bending in the wind, her aging tattered sack on the verge of instantaneous and utter decomposition. Marvin sat in his big leather swiveling chair, smoking a cigarette, trying to ascertain the quality of the visible portion of her legs. There was not, however, much to examine, owing to the out-of-style length of her dress. And what there was to examine was not pleasant: in fact, the sight of her calves, white and swollen, the skin stretched much too tight over the tissue, spiderwebbing networks of blue and green veins (which, amazingly, did not protrude from the surface, but rather appeared as if traced on with tiring felt-tip pens), walnut-sized bruises splotching the skin, was to Marvin one of the most disagreeable spectacles he had bore witness to in many years.

  What are you looking at? Rhoda said.

  Nothing, Madam, Marvin said. He could not help but note the droning, whining, nasal quality of her voice.

  Why should I work for you? Rhoda said. What benefits do you have to offer someone as talented as I?

  Won’t you take your mittens off and make yourself comfortable, Miss…

  Rhoda, Rhoda said. Rhoda Gleibenheim. And no I will not take off my mittens, if you please. I do not wish to hamper the flow of blood to my fingertips by exposing them to the inappropriate chill of your office space. I have no intention of making myself susceptible to arthritis prematurely. No, Sir, I will not take off my mittens.

  Certainly you will relieve yourself of your coat?

  Certainly I will not.

  If you are hired, Marvin said, you will find the working conditions quite agreeable.

  Rhoda spoke: My car is in the shop, and I therefore will require more time than the other employees to arrive in the morning. Needless to say, it will also be necessary for me to depart considerably earlier than your other employees. Do you have a cigarette? she asked, putting her fingers over her lips for Marvin to reflect upon, in the event that he could not decipher her nasal string of morphemes.

  Marvin Mitkowitz, who was not in the habit of lending cigarettes to anyone, neither bums who begged persistently for cigarettes, nor employees who never ventured to ask, for he brought exactly ten to the office each morning which he smoked one each hour on the hour, was taken aback by this sudden, unexpected request. A man of business, a man of finesse, a man capable of handling multi-million dollar accounts, a man able to handle his employees adroitly, skillfully, lucidly, if not forcefully, vigorously, (yet rarely unfairly,) Marvin had never before been faced with this dilemma: Rhoda, the prospective secretary (personally recommended, if not requested for employment by Marvin’s immediate superior in the main office), lay somewhere between bum and employee, as Marvin had not yet the time to ascertain her relative position. For sixteen years he had smoked ten cigarettes, no more, no less, each hour on the hour during his workday. Were he to give her one of his cigarettes, which hour’s allotment of tobacco would it be?

  The woman was awaiting a response.

  Not without reluctance, not without the most painful effort, not without the severest disinclination ever a man silently endured, did Marvin reach into his shirt-pocket and withdraw a cigarette, thereupon handing it to Rhoda, who received it with an open mitten.

  Can I have two? Rhoda asked.

  As Rhoda watches Marvin swiveling and smoking, clouding the office in nervous expectation (Rhoda is aware of this) of her tardy entrance, she thinks about how indispensable she has become around the office. And Rhoda has not expended a minimum of effort to secure this situation. Rhoda has hidden the coffee can where no one but her can find it. Rhoda periodically changes all the filenames on the hard-disk (not to mention the numerous floppys) so that none but her can make use of the computer. Rhoda has reorganized the contents of the eleven filing cabinets which still contain (Rhoda has not had the time yet to enter all of the data into the computer system) most of the company’s important records: instead of being filed in the standard alphabetical manner, Rhoda has filed the documents alphabetically with respect to the second letter of the client’s name: Bandy & Co under A, Ebbetson Associates under B, Acne Acoutrements under C, and so on. Only Rhoda possesses the knowledge needed to set the machinations of the office into motion each morning.

  No day can begin until Rhoda opens the frosted glass door and passes through the office entrance.

  Rhoda observes as Marvin, still swiveling, lights another cigarette.

  Marvin considers the clock, which reads 9:23, and lights cigarette #8. With Fortune in his ranks, he’ll be sucking away at #10, filling the clouded office with billows of sweet pale smoke (Marvin chortles to himself here), when she enters indifferently, phlegmatically, yet condescendingly nonchalant, as if she is cognizant (and he knows damned well she must be) of the power she and her sack hold over him. This accursed power has its origin in that first meeting when she took the second cigarette (the first dangling unlit between her plump, withered lips) from his leery hand and, with decisiveness and firm resolution, as well as a suspiciously well-rehearsed and skillfully practiced motion, deposited the prize into her dumpy shabby hand-knit sack (perhaps unlaunderable at all due to its tenuous composition).

  After witnessing the adroitness and deftness Rhoda had employed inserting the second cigarette into her sack, Marvin could not help but wonder how many cigarettes the sack contained. Certainly he was not her first victim. Perhaps, he thought, the sack only contains my cigarette: but perhaps it contains hundreds, even thousands (judging by the way in which the sack bulged) of borrowed cigarettes, Pall Malls, Lucky Strikes, Merit Ultra-Lights, Camels, Scotch Buys, Dorals—who knows how many brand names? and how far back they might date? Perhaps she is collecting them in case of a wartime shortage. Marvin was seized with the desire to snatch her sack and examine the contents. Who knows what he might find?

  I’ll take the job, Rhoda said. I will start immediately, though I must remind you that I will be leaving considerably earlier than the other employees due to my transportation situation.

  Marvin remembered how Rhoda perambulated through the office, scrutinizing the working conditions, shivering in protest though she was still wearing her coat and mittens, the sack slung over her drooping shoulder, bulging with his cigarette. She approached one of the employees.

  Hi there, she said. Got a cigarette?

  Rhoda did not look back at Marvin. She smiled a toothy smile at the employee.

  Sure, the employee replied. Sure I’ve got a cigarette.

  Thank you, Rhoda said upon receiving the cigarette. How about a dollar? You got a dollar I can have?

  But the employee, upon seeing, out of the corner of his eye, his boss Marvin, who was shaking his head spasmodically in an effort to persuade his employee to give Rhoda a response in the negative, gave Rhoda a response in the negative.

  No, he said. No I sure don’t have a dollar.

  Rhoda twirled the cigarette between her thumb and index and middle fingers like a drum-major manipulating a baton, then, adroitly and deftly, slipped the cigarette into her swelling sack.

  I must, Marvin thinks, sitting in his swiveling leather boss’s chair while attending to the clock, which now reads 9:28, see the inside of that sack!

  Apathetically, Rhoda ascends the stairs, feeling especially weary today, not quite lethargic, but merely slightly drowsy. She stands outside the frosted glass door, watching her watch and wondering if she is being watched from within. She has exacted exactly thirty-two minutes of the company’s due labor, which she multiplies by eleven, (the number of employees who have been standing idly by anticipating her entrance,) and compute
s the figure of 352 man-minutes of labor. She’ll get her money’s worth out of him one way or another.

  Rhoda places her hand against the frosted glass and gives the door a firm, haughty shove.

  When Rhoda enters, Marvin stops swiveling in his leather boss’s chair. He has not yet finished cigarette #9, and therefore still has one left in his shirt-pocket. He sucks on the filter furiously in an attempt to smoke the cigarette all the way down to the butt; for, as he knows, if he leaves any tobacco in the paper, Rhoda will lift the butt from the ashtray and deposit it in her sack. However, if he has not yet begun cigarette #10, Rhoda will ask to borrow it. And how can he, Marvin Mitkowitz, Branch Manager, refuse her? On what grounds would he base the refusal? Certainly he draws a sturdy enough wage to be able to afford purchasing another pack if the cigarette he lends her happens to be his last. Certainly a cigarette, the twentieth part of a single dollar, is worth less than he has dropped in the gutter and decided too worthless to bother himself with the effort of stooping to pick up. If he does not finish cigarette #9 in time, he will have no other alternative, when she approaches his desk and asks to borrow a cigarette, than to succumb to her request.

  Marvin watches Rhoda (clad in her overcoat and mittens) as she discloses the latest location of the coffee can and filters and spoons the grounds into the machine. He notices that she has left her sack lying limp in a heap like a lifeless animal on her desk.

  Rhoda makes the approach to Marvin’s office. The sack remains on her desk.

  The bus was late, Rhoda says.

  Yes, Marvin says. Apparently so.

  I didn’t have time to buy a pack of cigarettes. Can I have one of yours?

  Marvin looks at the unguarded sack. Certainly you may have one of my cigarettes, Marvin says. I’ll give you one directly you retrieve some water for the coffee machine.

  Indignantly, ungratefully, with obvious disdain and displeasure, Rhoda shuffles back across the office and over to the coffee machine. Before she exits into the hallway, where she will have to walk at least fifty feet to the washroom, she turns and looks back at Marvin.

  Marvin is watching her, and having imparted his request upon Rhoda, has taken the occasion to snub out #9 and ignite #10, an act which affords him no little pleasure.

  Retrieve some water for the coffee. Sort these documents. Type this memo. Contact the following clients and deliver each this message. Check on this account. Check on that account. Do this. Do that. Who in the hell does he think he is? Treating me like this. Me, Rhoda Gleibenheim, the second-cousin of his immediate superior in the main office. And the wages he pays me? Barely enough to sustain the lowest of living standards.

  Such were the musings of Rhoda, Head Secretary of the Branch, as she labored down the hall to perform the task she had been directed to perform.

  Marvin Mitkowitz, Branch Manager of the accounting firm, cigarette #10 pinched tightly between his lips, can no longer maintain the superhuman restraint he has employed for nearly a year.

  He approaches the unguarded sack.

  Rhoda stops before she reaches the washroom and looks back down the hall at the frosted glass door entrance. Why should I do his dirty work? Why should I always be the company mule? Rhoda, the company mule, the company packhorse, the company camel, the company slave. I’m not an executive secretary, I’m an overqualified maid.

  Rhoda scrutinizes the washroom door, then wheels about and marches inexorably, indomitably, irreversibly and with a manifest attitude of unbounded dignity, toward the office. She’ll have her raise.

  Marvin’s hand is on the sack.

  Rhoda’s mitten is on the frosted glass door.

  Marvin’s hand is trembling in anticipation. For nearly a year he has watched her each day sluggishly, apathetically, yet somehow haughtily enter the office, an act which has given him more than a slight feeling of uneasiness, of revulsion, of intense, almost pathological curiosity. And now, at last, the moment of incident has arrived.

  Before opening the sack, he pauses, takes a final long, deep and satisfying drag off cigarette #10.

  He snubs the butt with a violent, triumphant stab in Rhoda’s ashtray. He plunges his hand into the sack.

  Rhoda has waited for this minute much too long. She pauses at the frosted glass door entrance, rehearsing her speech: Mister Mitkowitz, I have endured the severest of working conditions patiently, silently, with the most noble of attitudes, considering the situation. Now, Mister Mitkowitz, I feel it is time that you reward my efforts and talents with an increase in salary.

  Rhoda gives the door a firm, decisive shove.

  Mister Mitkowitz!

  Before Marvin has a chance to examine the contents of the sack, the frosted glass door swings open.

  Mister Mitkowitz! Rhoda exclaims.

  Marvin Mitkowitz, Branch Manager of the accounting firm, attempts to retract his hand from Rhoda’s sack, but finds that he cannot move. It is as if his body has been paralyzed, and only his mind remains operant.

  His eyes are round and white like new golf balls, and he looks at Rhoda utterly expressionless.

  Mr. Murphy’s Wedding

  My Life is a Perfect Sphere,

  And I Roll From Room to Room

  My name is Mr. Murphy, and that is the name of my father and of his father before him. My father’s father died today, but my father and I each got married, so I suppose things have a way of evening out, mostly.

  I can not trust a woman who is devoted to me and who has been faithful: there is still a chance that she might betray me.

  Once a woman has abused my trust, only then can she be trusted. She can be trusted to be untrustworthy.

  I trust Wife.

  We Were Once Young and Fresh,

  But Now We are Old and We Smell

  I am a good man…. I am a trustworthy man. As far as I know, I am free of disease. Many of my employers have liked me. I was defeated by only a narrow margin when I ran for Junior Class President of Sparks High School. I have never cheated on Wife. I do not support the oppressors of the underprivileged classes.

  I smoke marijuana only when it is appropriate to do so.

  I have never enjoyed a pornographic movie.

  It is my wedding night. I do not know where Wife is, but surely Wife has found some distraction to occupy herself with in the streets of Reno, the city I have tastefully chosen to be the site of our honeymoon. We have been married nearly four hours now, and though the span of time may seem short to you, dear and sympathetic reader, I assure you that each increment of time is infinitely divisible: between each second, between each tenth of a second, is a mathematically verifiable infinity. You see, I think about these things.

  Wife, on the other hand, does not think about these things. As a matter of fact, I believe Wife has a digestive disorder. True, Wife can indeed subdue the effects of liquor, and a liberal helping of marijuana brownies does not seem to make Wife sleepy. Not even psilocybin seems to change Wife’s sober contemptuous bliss. Nonetheless, an afternoon of drinking at a wedding reception and a nightcap of a bottle of champagne prompted Wife to turn her head toward me, curl her lips and say: “This tastes like shit.”

  You see, of course, what I am getting at.

  In the Mexican Party of Life, I am the Piñata

  Wife’s favorite beverage is Almond Flavored Goncourt Bros. Champagne.

  Wife does not like to bowl and she does not like to play chess.

  Wife’s breasts are not small for a woman her age.

  Wife does not like poetry, even when I read it aloud, with expression.

  Wife has an unpleasant odor which reminds me of licorice.

  Wife does not know in which city she was born. “Somewhere in California, I don’t know. What’s it matter anyway?”

  Wife has certainly taken on lovers since we have been ma
rried, due mostly to the liberal fashion in which I treat Wife. (You see how good I am to her.)

  Wife has no interest in art, literature, philosophy, sports, or anything else that matters in life.

  Wife does not like me anymore.

  You Can’t Steer A Train

  My father got married today too.

  I attended his wedding.

  It was his third wedding. I have attended all three.

  I met Wife at my father’s third wedding.

  My father married my girlfriend.

  He married her to get back at me. He wanted to get back at me because of the affair I had with his second wife. My father’s second wife was better looking than my girlfriend. Now that my father has married my girlfriend she looks better than she used to. Perhaps this is a temporary affectation. Perhaps she employed the services of a legion of specialists. My father’s attempt to provoke me by marrying my girlfriend is not working. I got married today too, and now I have a wife.