by Paul Neilan
And yet unchecked Miller High Life abuse is not without its upside. It is the goddamn champagne of beers after all. And so I was able to stand on the eighteenth floor of the Panopticon Insurance building with my hand on my cubicle wall, my whole body swaying, my knees buckling beneath me, and immediately recognize what was wrong. It was all part of something bigger of course, something so deeply entrenched and terrible and accepted that I was never quite drunk enough to name it. But in that state I could see more of it than most people would normally allow themselves to see. And I even knew how to fix some of it. It was like what Buddhists call satori, and all I had to do was get trashed. I didn’t have to meditate or anything.
The idea of cubicles was bad enough, but making people sit in them all day was just inhuman. They had to go. They were like The Hole in southern prisons or how farmers raise veal. It was like sticking a brick of cocaine up your ass and smuggling it across the border. Things were being crammed into places they were never meant to fit. And what these people did to their cubicles made it even worse. Dressing them up with trinkets and pictures, always trying to make their fabric walls look hospitable and just like home. I understood why they did it, but that didn’t make it right. Lying to other people is fine and usually funny, but lying to yourself is tacky. There’s nothing hospitable about an 8' × 8' carpeted holding cell on the eighteenth floor of an insurance building, and it would be wrong to forget that. To pretend otherwise only blurs the line between work life and real life, and that’s a line that needs to be starkly and brutally enforced. Boundaries are fucking important.
And everyone drank too much coffee too, at the wrong times and for the wrong reasons. They drank it when they came in every morning to get going, and then again in the afternoon to keep going. They ran on caffeine fumes all day and never fucking got anywhere. Then they went home spent and empty and crashed in front of the TV every night and slept away the few hours they had for themselves. All these motherfuckers are always talking about the best ways to manage your time. The fact is any time spent at work not sleeping in the bathroom is wasted time, and it’s hard to sleep when you’re pumped full of caffeine. Everyone’s awake for the wrong part of their lives. And by the weekend they’re too exhausted from all the frantic, useless activity to even care, and it’s only fucking two days off anyway. Nobody has the time or the energy to do what they really want, or to even figure out what that is. That’s why everyone’s so pissed off and blowing each other away on the freeway and having sex with prostitutes all the time.
And goddamn Inspiration Alley was so grotesquely misguided it pained me to even have to acknowledge it, even more so because nobody else did. It was the execution-style murder of context. It was history castrated to a sound bite. It was seeing a rainbow in the waves of an oil slick as it seeped across the ocean drowning fish and strangling birds and believing that ecological catastrophes had their own redeeming beauty. A world in which it’s possible for someone to associate Martin Luther King with increased alphabetizing efficiency is a world in which none of us should ever want to live.
Whether knowing these things made me a prophet or a management consultant I wasn’t sure. I think they might be the same thing now anyway. I could have tried to tell someone, tried to make them understand, but I didn’t really want to. It wouldn’t have helped anyway. This was a system so sick, so tainted, no good could ever come from it. Except when they had huge company-wide charity drives and raised a lot of money for the United Way. But that was offset by the humiliation of Jeans Day and having to gather around someone’s cubicle to sing “Happy Birthday” in monotone and all the other ways in which a person was diminished every day until they became so small not even the United Way could save them.
Even something so seemingly right as Bring Your Daughter to Work Day in that environment was horribly, horribly wrong. Marching a sweet, innocent nine year old who likes ponies and dreaming into an 8' × 8' cubicle and telling her that if she’s strong and independent she’ll get to spend forty years in there slowly wasting away is an exercise in feminist misogyny. It was like a fucking Scared Straight program, a right-wing Christian conspiracy to create more stay-at-home moms. You grab a little girl by the pigtails and say, “Suzy, this is what hell looks like!” and obviously she’s going to kick off her shoes and get pregnant at fifteen. And she’ll keep on going for as long as the clock runs, anything to stay out of that cubicle.
If I could ovulate that’s where I would’ve been. But I could not. But I could not.
* * *
The bartender at my happy hour bar was also the owner. His name was Sooj. That’s what people called him anyway, what the old men mumbled to get his attention. I never saw an official document from the guy or anything. He looked Lebanese but he was born in Cleveland. His parents though were both from Lebanon.
Sooj obviously didn’t like his deadbeat customers. He served their drinks like he was doing them a favor, which he probably was since he never cut them off. Even when they passed out with their head on the bar he’d let them sleep through it, then serve them again when they woke up. It was touching in a desperate sort of way.
He kept to himself as much as a bartender could. The only thing he liked to talk about was how, if someone broke into your house, you were allowed to kill them.
“It is a question of security! You must protect your family from harm!” he’d rant in his understated Cleveland accent. “It goes back to prehistoric times!”
Sometimes the old men would wake from their comas just long enough to frame the terms of debate: “What if it’s not your house? What if you’re just renting?” “Or house-sitting?” “What if it’s a woman who’s breaking in?” “What if you broke in first and no one was home, then someone else broke in after you? Are you allowed to kill them?” “What if you’re asleep and—ahhh fuck it.”
The result was always the same. Sooj was wise, like Solomon but shorter, and he never lost an argument.
A young guy came in once, greasy and in clothes too tight and too short to realistically be his. He looked like he’d gone to audition for the pickpocket role on Starsky and Hutch and then found out that it had been cancelled in the seventies. He got into it with Sooj pretty good and he seemed like he knew what he was talking about, like maybe he’d been in the situation a few times himself. He said that it depended which state you lived in—Texas you could shoot anything that wasn’t already dead, Utah you had to invite them in for tea and then make them your wife, whether you were attracted to the guy or not—and even in some of the vigilante states it wasn’t always justified, depending on the threat the intruder posed and other mitigating circumstances, except he called these other mitigating circumstances “other fucking shit.”
Sooj listened patiently and then had one thing to say to him, one thing only: “Deadly force is authorized!” It was what he went with whenever debate had to be squashed immediately. There was nothing left to say. The pickpocket bummed a cigarette and left. The old men nodded into their drinks and I learned a lesson I had learned a thousand times before: facts and reason are nothing against a good slogan. No one can argue with a bumper sticker. Not when it’s on the bartender’s car.
Sitting on my stool I thought of a bumper sticker: “If Mean People Suck, Why Isn’t My Dick In Your Mouth?” But I did not tell Sooj. I did not tell anyone.
Into this fascist cesspool, one Sunday morning, walked Gwen.
“Oh my god, Shane!” she said, and hit me with an open field tackle of a hug that lifted me off my stool and cracked two of my ribs. I saw her coming at the last second and braced myself. Otherwise I would’ve been paralyzed for life.
“How are you?” she said as she crushed me like a grape.
I could only gasp for air, and pray.
“I’ve been looking all over for you. You didn’t return any of my calls, I hadn’t seen you, I thought, well, anyway, here you . . . are,” and she looked around at the dim, dirty bar with its fruit flies—who were regarding her with suspicio
n, just like Sooj—and its Miller High Life, The Champagne of Beers poster that was peeling slowly and inexorably off the wall like the shifting of tectonic plates, and its old man three stools down who was sleeping soundly with his head in the crook of his elbow, passed out on the bar.
“I’m just glad you’re all right,” she said.
“Yeah. How are you?”
“I’m good, I’m good. But it’s been hard. It’s been hard for all of us.”
She seemed very sad and I wasn’t sure what tragedy I’d missed. Maybe a nuclear holocaust. Maybe the special glass had saved me and Sooj and the old man. I thought of all the cockroaches that must be running around, flipping over parked cars with their brand new nuclear-mutated strength, smug and ruthless, at last the dominant species they were always destined to be. I thought of them and I was afraid.
“You just can never be ready for something like that. It took us all by surprise.”
“Yikes,” I said.
“Poor Vern. They were married for twenty-seven years. At least they didn’t have any children.”
“Huh?”
“I heard they’re talking about naming her cube the Martha Wolsey Memorial Cubicle, but it would just be used for storage and remembrances. That would be too creepy and disrespectful if someone else sat there.”
“Oh yeah. Martha’s dead,” I said.
“I know,” and she hugged me again. “I was so sorry I couldn’t go to the funeral. I had a PowerPoint presentation. There were clients coming in. It couldn’t be rescheduled.”
“Yeah I didn’t go either.”
“What?” she said, pushing me out of the hug and looking in my face.
“I didn’t go either.”
“To the funeral?”
“Yeah.”
“Why not?”
It seemed an absurd question, and it was only nine o’clock in the morning and I was already pretty drunk, so I didn’t understand it at first.
“Uh, what?”
“Shane,” she put both of her hands on my shoulders and squared me to her, “Why didn’t you go to the funeral? Wasn’t the entire team given special permission to attend?” She was talking to me slowly and enunciating her words like I was a small, retarded child. Which technically, at that point, I may have been.
“Yeah. But I went home instead.”
“You what?” She was getting loud. “I can’t believe you’d—why did you go home?”
“I didn’t even know her.”
“Yes you did!”
“No I didn’t,” I said calmly.
“That’s not the point!” She was furious. Irrationally so, I thought. “The entire team was going. Do you have any idea what that means?”
I wasn’t sure, and I think my vacant stare conveyed this.
“My god Shane! My god!” She shook her head and looked around for someone to second her indignation, but nobody in the bar cared. “You need to be more sensitive to these things!”
“What, like I should wear a velvet cowboy hat and start blowing guys? Maybe sing some Depeche Mode in a bus station bathroom? “Personal Jesus”? Is that what you want to hear?” I shouted, because I wanted to be irrationally angry too.
“What are you talking about?” she said.
I also was not sure.
She steadied her voice.
“All I’m saying is you need to be more sensitive to the dynamics of certain situations and relationships, professional and otherwise.”
“Huh?”
She exhaled, controlling herself.
“There are certain obligations that a person has, certain responsibilities, and it’s important to keep your long term goals in mind when you make decisions.”
“So you’re saying it was a poor business decision not to go to big fat Martha’s funeral?”
“Frankly Shane? It was! And I don’t care what you say about—”
“That’s terrific. Very humanitarian,” I said.
“—the team dynamic or me or anything else, there’s no reason to insult Martha. She’s dead.”
“I know she’s dead. I was just being honest and descriptive.”
“No, you were being an asshole.”
“It’s not my fault they have to always be the same thing.”
“Oh, you’re so wise,” she said.
“All right, what’s the first thing you think of when I say Martha?”
“I think of what a good person she was, what an amazing typist—”
“Amazingly fat typist.”
“All right, that’s it. We’re not having this conversation. You’re drunk.”
“So what. That doesn’t mean I’m not right. Martha had a heart attack because she was overweight. That’s a fact. I’m just trying to help here. There are lessons for all of us to learn. We can’t let her die in vain. And I’m not drunk for your information.”
“Fine. Then you have no excuse. So don’t call me when you sober up.”
“Okay BYE!” I shouted after her as she stormed out.
The old man never even stirred. He slept through all the shouting like the little withered angel that he was. The bar was suddenly quiet and eerie and still. The mildewed Miller High Life poster wasn’t used to this kind of commotion. Neither was Sooj. He was standing with his arms folded, regarding me and the situation.
I gave him a sheepish grin and put both my hands up, hoping that he’d had a similar experience at some point and knew what I meant. Then we’d swap stories and make generalizations about women and maybe he’d give me some free beer.
Sooj put both hands on the bar and leaned forward, his dark eyes not far away from mine. “Do you own a gun?” he said.
I was fumbling with my keys at the door when Bryce stepped out of the shadows and scared the shit out of me. I didn’t even know my front door had shadows. You never notice these things until after you’re already fucked.
“Bryce, jesus,” I said, struggling not to collapse.
“Hello Shane.” He wasn’t as jumpy as usual. His arms were at his sides and out a little, like he was making a conscious effort to have better posture. I didn’t see a shiv in his hand but it could have been in his back pocket, or tucked in his belt behind his back like a pirate. “I need to talk to you,” he said.
“Sure. Do you want to come in?” I had my key in the lock finally. I was fully prepared to open the door, leap in and then slam it on his arm as he plunged the knife after me. I would scream like that bug-eyed woman from The Shining and anyone watching would be humiliated for me and annoyed, but I would live.
“No. I’d rather talk here,” he said.
He didn’t want to get blood on the carpet. Sure. It was probably better this way. There were saltshakers everywhere, all over my bed and on the floor. I didn’t want that to be the last thing I tried to explain before I died. He took a step closer to me.
“I know about you and my wife,” he said.
I wish I could have seen the look on my face. It’s so rare that your mouth actually drops open from being genuinely bewildered. I must have looked like a fucking cartoon.
“I . . . know, you . . . know?” I said.
“I want it to stop,” he said, pushing his arms out a little further and leaning slightly forward.
“It might be too late for that,” I said, shocking myself.
For about four seconds it could have gone either way. We stared at each other and I was cringing inside. A guy with that many tattoos had to know how to fight, or at least have a high threshold for pain. I would bite and scratch and pinch. I would use my nails. I would start crying and pretend to throw up and then kick him in the nuts. I was frightened and feeling faint but for those four seconds I didn’t blink.
And then Bryce fell apart. He completely deflated and dropped his head and scratched the back of his neck with both hands.
“I know, I know it is,” he whimpered, and I took my clenched fingers off my keys and left them hanging in the door. I would not get stabbed, not tonight. Not by Bryce a
t least. “Can I just tell you though?” he was pleading. “I didn’t used to be like this.” He locked his hands over his thinning pompadour. “I used to be in a band you know. A long time ago.”
“Rockabilly?” I said.
“No, funk. We were called the Funktastics.”
“I see.”
“We used to play all over town.” His eyes were getting glassy and I was getting impatient. “We were good too. I played bass and sang sometimes. Never enough, but sometimes. Those were great days. It was really a lot of fun. But she never came to see us play. Not once. She’s the reason I quit making music. She never believed in me.”
No Bryce, you never believed in yourself, is what I wanted to say, but I would’ve been openly laughing at him. I owed the guy over $1,000 in back rent and I was having sex with his wife. There was no need to uselessly antagonize the poor fuck. I just needed to let him get it all out, maybe give him a hug, then dead bolt my door.
“Yeah,” I said.
“And I know I’ve got problems now, but I’m doing the best I can, you know? Everyone’s got problems. It’s not like I’m begging for change or robbing people or anything. I’m trying to work through it all, getting myself back. Like the guy in that movie, you know?”
“Sure,” I said. I think he was talking about Sloth from The Goonies. If I’d had a Baby Ruth I would have given it to him.
“I see what she’s doing too. I don’t like it, but there’s nothing I can do anymore. We don’t talk much. But I wanted you to know that I don’t want this. I don’t know if that counts for anything.”
“Yeah,” I said, because it really didn’t.
