And then, everything turned red. My palms sprouted beads of sweat, the hair down my neck rose in alarm, yet my knees began to buckle as once again, Ted became my “pal.” He began saying stupid things like, “How’d you get so lucky, Dan?” and “For the love of God, steal paradise while you’re at it,” referring to my wife, who of course was loving the attention. Perhaps the moment was all good-natured, but I really wanted to swing an ice pick into the man’s skull. He went on with other things as well, being grossly reasonable about the folder I left at home, even bringing up other projects he knew I was fretting over, telling me not to worry about “so and so,” he’d give them a call… My hero, Ted, here to save me from my predicaments under the captivated attention of my wife.
For quite some time afterward, Ted was my “buddy.” Although he remained oppressive towards my coworkers, any concerns addressed to me were always tactfully overlooked, or dismissed as uncontrollable incidents. Whatever the case, he kept a cool edge with me regarding work and then would occasionally ask when we were going to go shooting, or how the family was. His favorite was a simple, “How’s Veronica, Dan?” It would’ve all been quite dandy and flattering except that now I believed Ted was a psychopath, a real-life murderer walking amongst us. Unfortunately, it was during the unfolding of these events when I believe I made my first real mistake with the man.
Ted was a very shrewd person. Obviously, he was more shrewd than any of us at the office gave him credit for, but nonetheless, Ted was human. Because of the overall “creeps” that had enveloped me regarding the man, I naturally failed to reciprocate his chumminess; instead I found myself dodging his probes regarding my family, or when we were going to go out to the shooting range. At some point, this deflective behavior of mine must have irritated Ted, because one day he just quit. He walked past me one morning as I was in the break room pouring myself a cup of coffee, and gave me a look that said all too clearly, I’m done with you, Dan. Even a moron could’ve read that look. My hands began to tremble so much that I made a trickling trail of coffee upon the floor on my way back to my desk. What next? I thought to myself. To my great dismay, I didn’t have to wait very long to find out.
Not a week later, Ted called me into his office. The buddy talk was over as he matter-of-factly notified me that the office needed to “shed” some hours…
“Things are a little bit slow right now, Dan…” Since I was one of the highest paid employees, Ted reasoned that I would be the first one to sacrifice in the budget for our office. “Go ahead and transfer three of your clients over to Ben.”
I doubt he missed the color of my face when I walked out of the room, as I was steamed with anger. “Only temporary, Dan,” he assured me with a toneless voice, on my way out. Although I didn’t look back at him, I painted the image in my head of Ted sitting there in his chair with a baleful grin upon his face. Not once in the ten years I worked there had anyone’s hours been cut. Right before Christmas? I was truly upset, not just for the sake of financial reasons, but mostly for now being on the “shit-list” of a person I feared was a walking nutcase. In my attempts to stay clear of the Great White, I apparently positioned myself right into his killing zone.
The next day, Ted sent me an email clarifying the details of how my hours would be reduced, stating that it would be just through the rest of December. He ended with a simple, Say hello to Veronica. I got the message alright. I was filled with trepidation. I wanted to approach the man and argue against what I knew was an outright distortion of the truth. Our office hadn’t slowed down, we were hopping with work. Ted was just getting back at me for putting him off. But what could I do? Did I dare upset the man anymore? It was my own folly that got me in that predicament, and I was positive that if I pursued my feelings about the matter, I would just make things much worse for myself.
Ultimately, Ted didn’t give me the immediate opportunity to approach him, and I suppose that was his plan all along. He left that afternoon for a five-day seminar in Las Vegas. The tension in the office abruptly broke—bursting like an overcooked sausage— as he drove away, Someone gave a loud hoot from the back room, which generated another hoot from afar, and then another, and before long, the whole office was hooting and hollering, screaming like a nuthouse out of control. At one point Ben stood up on his desk and started singing and dancing, much to all of our amusement. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a quaint moment of relief for myself, one that I readily accepted by resigning myself to the notion that for the time being, I would just enjoy the brief absence of our supervisor.
I hate myself for that now. I loathe the listless spirit which is encased in my pathetic shell, the “passiveness of my nature” as my wife used to say. What I should have done at that moment, instead of laughing like a fool at Ben Jukowski grinding on his cubicle wall as he sung “Get down on it,” was walk right out that door, and start looking for another job. I should have done that, but I didn’t…
There’s really no way of describing the absolute terror that befell me during the events that transpired after Ted’s return. Over the course of a few weeks, everything seemed to move pretty fast towards what I now deem was the “horrendous finale.” A few days after Ted came back, I was watching television one evening and caught the headlines of a grisly murder in Las Vegas, one that had occurred earlier in the week. The reporter referred to the young woman’s killer as “a primordial butcher, who acted with a style very reminiscent of the infamous Jack the Ripper.” Appropriately enough, the poor woman’s name was Maria London, a fact which the newsman sumptuously repeated several times over in a style I couldn’t help but consider very reminiscent of Don Henley’s Dirty Laundry, until they finally flashed a recent photo of the victim. Uncontrollably, I stood up out of my chair, a sense of dreadful fright washing over me. I was rendered speechless, as I stared at the woman’s photo in disbelief. Maria London could have been my own wife’s sister!
“He did it,” I told myself. He was there when it happened, he noticed her somewhere in the crowded expanse of Vegas, he stalked her from the depths where only his kind lurked, and he tore at her with such viciousness.
I called in sick the next day. As my wife took the kids to school, then went shopping, I sat at my computer and touched up my resume. I knew I needed to get out of that office, and away from Ted. Out of sight, out of mind—it was my only hope, I reasoned. I contemplated quitting right then, just never go back, but I wasn’t sure if an act so unexpected of my “passive nature,” wouldn’t attract more unwanted attention from a man like him. I thought about how best to orchestrate a timely exit from the quandary I was now in, and probably I thought too much, so that I became paralyzed with inaction. The only thing I did do was send my resume out to a few local businesses, while I contemplated various scenarios and answers to the questions I knew would come: So why are you leaving us, Dan?
But the first, and real question came the next day at work. “Feeling better?” Ted asked me, as he walked past my cubicle. His voice had a tone of subtle derisiveness, as if he knew why I called in sick. I told myself I was being paranoid, but still avoided the man as best I could for the next few days.
Several days went by uneventfully, and things were beginning to settle down in my head, for I already had two interviews scheduled in response to my job inquiries. I also had developed several good answers to my future inquisition from Ted, which I knew I would receive on the day I walked into his office unexpectedly and handed him my resignation letter. Christmas was right around the corner, everyone seemed to be feeling the spirit, and for the first time in what seemed like months I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of relief. But, then it happened.
The height of my foolishness came to light one late afternoon, just days before Christmas Eve. Ted owned a leather-bound appointment book, as he was oft to say he didn’t trust mechanical devices such as a Blackberry as much he did his own penmanship. On that particular day, I noticed Ted left that book near the sink in the break room and stupidly,
I decided to snoop through it. I flipped through the contents, reading various scribblings, notes and appointments, I found nothing the slightest bit alarming. I then rummaged through the back liner-pocket of the book, finding several business cards and brochures and then, crammed deep into the corner of the pocket as if hidden there, a small cocktail napkin. I retrieved the napkin and proceeded to unfold it. On the front, printed in black and pink letters were the words The Panther Lounge, but on the back, in red ink and in Ted’s own handwriting, was a phone number followed by: M. London.
“What’cha got there, Dan?”
Trapped! Caught red-handed! Now in sheer panic, my mind flashed back to a recent show I had watched on the Discovery channel. The baby sea lion, stunned almost to the point of death, goes hurdling twenty feet into the air as it is struck from the dark depths below, with the crashing force of several tons that only the fiercest predator on Earth can deliver.
“Oh…is this yours…Ted?” It was the dumbest response ever. Everyone knew the appointment book was his. I was no wise guy, so I just played on my stupidity, citing that I wasn’t getting much sleep lately, that my thinking was being affected. Trying to get past the awkwardness of the moment, I quickly shoved everything back how I found it, then handed him the book. I avoided his stare, which must have been an alarmed and suspicious one, and proceeded to wash my hands as if nothing at all had occurred. As if I, who just discovered—without a doubt—the only damning secret that madman kept about his monstrous self, cared not the slightest bit. Just another day at the office.
I felt his cold stare burn holes into the back of my head, as I stood there washing my hands. The ensuing stretch of silence exposed the calculated malice I knew was blooming in Ted’s mind. He knew. He knew what I saw.
“Have a good night…Dan,” was all he said. He walked out of the break room, out of the office, and to his car with a commanding stride that left me all but shaking.
During the subsequent days at the office, I continued to pretend nothing ever happened. Ted kept his mouth shut about the incident also, but that gave me little comfort. I feared the man was planning something, and as I found out…he was.
This morning Ted came up to me and asked me for a favor. It was Christmas Eve, he admitted, and the timing couldn’t have been any worse, as our whole office was planning to go home early. But Ted told me he felt bad, having to cut my hours as he did a few weeks ago, so close to Christmas and all. He wanted to make it up to me today, by asking me to stay a little later than expected. There were several proposal letters he needed to get out by the end of the day; “I could really use your help, Dan. You’re the best one on the team.” He even amplified his request by announcing he would be staying late as well. He was chummy again, which I took as his way of buttering me up into saying yes, but since I knew my wife would be wrapped up with cooking for the next several hours, I agreed to help Ted out.
Around 2:30 p.m., Ted walked out of his office and called to me from across the maze of cubicle walls. He was going to grab a bite to eat, and asked me if I wanted something. He was buying. Knowing there would be plenty of delicious foods waiting for me when I got home, I graciously declined his offer and watched as he left the office in a gay and chipper-like, whistling some Christmas tune on his way out to his car.
He came back about an hour later, in the same mood but quick to be back in his office. Minutes later, I heard him in there typing on his keyboard, chuckling to himself as he often did, as I was just finishing up my last letter. Ted then came out and walked over to my desk.
“How’s it going here, Dan?”
“Finishing up the last one right now,” I replied.
Ted nodded approvingly, made some comment on how he knew I was the right man for the job and then, after a brief pause, stated wistfully, “You’re a lucky man Dan…such a beautiful family.”
It struck me as queer at first, how he said it, but then he proceeded to admit he wished he had a family like mine. “Holidays are always lonely without family,” he declared, shaking his head solemnly. “Well, show yourself out when you’re done, I’ll be in the bathroom…oh, and Merry Christmas, Dan.”
Merry Christmas, Dan. I thought on this statement of his as I drove away from the office and into the stormy, rain-soaked darkness of dusk. Merry Christmas, Dan. I thought about the emotional cavity behind those words as I opened my front door to the listless sounds of our home, a home which should have been ripe with laughter, and the thrumming of little, flighty feet across wooden floors. Merry Christmas Dan. I heard those words echo in my head as I observed the stiff postures of my entire family in areas not meant for casual resting…Merry Christmas, Dan.
I’ll say no more about what I came home to, just a few hours ago, save that there are things no person should ever have taken from them. Beyond that horrendous finale of my life, my thinking became gray and nebulous. I retrieved my gun, and went back to the office in a manner more elusive than I thought even I was capable of. I parked around the corner, so as not to announce my arrival, and then crept my way up to our office building. Like one of those Japanese shadow-warriors, I stole my way into the building as quietly as possible, right through the lobby, down the hall, and into that madman’s office.
I remember being starkly afraid at that moment. I wasn’t concerned about retribution for what I was about to do, nor was I worried about my ability to follow through with my deadly impulse. The only thing I remembered about that moment was the horrible fear that I would somehow alert the man to my presence. If Ted knew what I was about to do, if he heard the shifting of my hefty frame as I crept up behind him, I knew he would turn around, lay witness to my plan, and with that subtle crookedness of his, smile upon me as I pulled the trigger.
Victory reigned over me in the end. Under the waves of crashing thunder, I killed The Great White. I killed him without his knowing, winning whatever was left to be had of his sick game. But beyond that, I failed miserably in this life. The cost of my folly was the dearest treasure of all. Ultimately, it shall bleed me out like a jagged laceration upon the femoral artery. One day, I may limp through the streets of freedom once again, after many long years spent in “psychotic rehabilitation,” but forever more I will be sentenced to carry the burden of my memories. I will see them in my mind just as clear as I see this plate of food before me; Kung Pao Chicken, with its golden-brown clumps, and sticky red swirls jumbled all together with flecks of white rice. Colors quite reminiscent of the car now pulling into the parking lot, with its dancing red lights bouncing off the cola-brown, glass window I am looking through… Merry Christmas, Dan.
The End
The Supervisor Page 2
