Copyright © Christian McPherson, 2010.
all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, www.accesscopyright.ca, [email protected].
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library and archives canada cataloguing in publication
McPherson, Christian
The cube people / Christian McPherson.
ISBN 978-0-88971-251-5 (paper)
ISBN 978-0-88971-268-3 (ebook)
I. Title.
PS8625.P53C83 2010 C813’.6 C2010-904331-6
for Molly and Henry
my world, my gravity
Fertility
I’m waiting to masturbate into a cup. I realize fairly quickly that not everyone here is waiting to do the same thing. A chubby elderly woman sits three seats down reading Cosmopolitan. She’s wearing grey sweatpants and a white T-shirt with an orange smiling-sun cartoon poking out from behind the words “Orlando, Florida.” Her left leg is extended and her foot is wrapped in a tensor bandage. Crutches lie in the seat beside her. Her breasts are big and droopy and they hang down to her stomach like a basset hound’s ears. I try not to think about them, but then I involuntary flash to my grandmother’s breasts, wilted watermelons dangling down to her navel. No, no, no, no. I close my eyes and rub my temples.
“You okay?” asks a female voice.
I sit up and open my eyes.
“You okay?” repeats a semi-attractive lady across the aisle.
“Ahhh, yeah, no, just a bit of a headache is all,” I tell her. I note that she’s extremely pregnant. She looks like she swallowed one of those giant exercise balls.
“Yeah, I get those all the time,” she tells me, her concerned face turning into a smile.
“Ah,” I say, not really wanting to talk.
My wife and I have been trying to get pregnant for over a year now. We recently went to a fertility specialist, Dr. King. He thinks he knows what the problem might be – PCOS, Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. However, he said he wanted to cover all the bases, so he sent me for a test to make sure my sperm is good, too.
I’m worried that I won’t be able to perform. I want to stay focused on the task at hand, the task that will literally be in my hand quite soon. God, pregnant women and grandma titties, I definitely need some better fodder for my fantasy love tug. I think about my wife’s breasts. I think about my ex-girlfriend’s breasts. I think about the breasts of the girl I saw standing at the bus stop on my way here. The pregnant lady is still smiling at me, waiting for me to engage her in conversation.
“How far along are you?” I ask politely.
“My due date was yesterday, so I think I’m going to have to be induced if he doesn’t show up soon. I had to be induced for my first, I was ten days late. Are you here for sperm analysis?”
I feel my face flush. Christ almighty – am I here for sperm analysis? You have to be kidding me. I contemplate asking her if she’s planning to give up the baby for adoption. Isn’t there any privacy anymore?
“Yes, I am.”
“My husband had to do it, too. Nothing to be embarrassed about, I’m a nurse. I just took an educated guess, after all, this is a fertility office. That’s what all men come in here for usually.”
Just as she finishes saying that, I see a guy about my age appear from around a wall. He looks a little dazed, bewildered, spent. He quickly glances around the room, then dashes for the front door. A short chubby nurse, with a clipboard and a plastic cup in her hands, comes around the counter and says, “Colin MacDonald?” I stand up waving my hand. The pregnant woman across the aisle whispers “Good luck,” as if I were about to perform for an audition or head in for a job interview.
Good luck on what, getting an erection? Fear grips me again. As I follow the nurse down the hall, I try to think sexy thoughts. But all I can do is watch the white fabric of the nurse’s pants being devoured by the hungry crack of her stop-sign-wide bum. I try not to look. I try to think of what nurses look like in pornos – white thigh-high stockings, short miniskirts, tight shirts with boobs about to pop out, and little caps with the red cross on the front.
The nurse leads me down a narrow hallway to a windowless room the size of a walk-in closet with a minuscule ensuite bathroom. A plump armchair takes up almost the entire width of the room, a picture of a sailing ship hangs high on the wall, a small trolley sits next to the door, and a magazine rack is mounted on the wall. The nurse hands me the cup. “When you’re done put the cap back on and mark your name and the time on the label. Place the sample in this warmer. Here in this rack are some magazines if you need any assistance. I recommend you lock the door. Any questions?”
“Umm, I guess not. Just put the sample in there?” I confirm, pointing down at the bottom of the cart to the little rectangular box that is emitting bubbling sounds similar to a fish tank.
“Right,” she says closing the door behind her.
I lock the door.
My grade five teacher, Mrs. Dunbar, was a knockout. She had long dark hair and always wore snug turtlenecks and tight slacks. My buddy Gord and I had many recess debates about whether or not Mrs. Dunbar did it. I knew she was married because she wore a ring, but I still wasn’t convinced that she really did it with Mr. Dunbar. Gord, on the other hand, was convinced. “I bet they go at it all the time,” he would tell me.
As the school year progressed, Mrs. Dunbar suddenly took to wearing dresses. I hadn’t really attributed anything to this shift in wardrobe. Then after three months of wearing this new attire, she came into class and dropped the bomb. She was pregnant. Then I had known for sure she did the nasty.
I think of Mrs. Dunbar as I unzip. My pants fall around my ankles. Looking to my right, I see the sailboat. I try to imagine Mrs. Dunbar in a bathing suit, sunning herself on the boat’s deck. I pull my underwear down to my ankles and stare. Nothing. It just hangs there, pathetic, flaccid. I play with it a little and try to picture Mrs. Dunbar naked. I can feel some blood moving and life is springing into the monster, into Marvin. Yes, I too have named my appendage. Why Marvin? Actually I didn’t name him, my wife did. Marvin the monster, who roams around in wet slimy caves. It seemed funny at the time.
Marvin is a tad sluggish. Tugging at him some more he plumps up a bit. I realize I can’t do this standing up, so I shuffle backwards like a prisoner in ankle chains, toward the chair, and I’m just about to sit when I flash to all the dirty asses that have jerked off in that chair. Marvin shrinks back down. I shuffle to the bathroom and pull out a ream of paper towel. I bring it back to the chair and lay it out in two strips. I sit down. Yank yank yank on Marvin. Blood returns, but the horrific image of the fat nurse’s butt ass-munching those pants is stuck in my head. God, why does my brain keep going to that? And this brings me back to the o
ld lady’s tits in the waiting room, the one with the crutches. This is a fertility office, so she isn’t here about her leg, but rather to get a Pap smear or something – Oh God, Sasquatch bush. Must get rid of these visions. Time to invoke the porn. As I stand up, the paper towel sticks to my butt. I pull it off and scuttle the two feet to the magazine rack to grab the only issue there, Penthouse: The International Magazine for Men, Oct. 2003. The rag is old and there are pages missing. Some are stuck together. Gingerly I place it on the arm of the chair, trying not to touch it as much as possible. It flops open to a page where the caption reads, “Diving her tongue deep into the beautiful blonde’s honey pot.” Marvin responds well to this. I readjust the paper and sit back down. Still, it doesn’t completely quiet my mind – fat-ass crack-munching pants keep popping up.
“No!” I yell, and then realize that maybe the nursing staff or the people in the waiting room might be able to hear me.
I think of all the other guys who have been through this madness. There must have been thousands of men in here before me, trying to think of all kinds of weird sexual stuff, trying not to think of their grandmothers’ tits. That’s what gets me going, not the guys masturbating before me, but their fantasies. I think of the girl-on-girl action, the honey pots, the whips, the chains, the group sex, asses, nipples, vibrators on full throttle. My mind is a swirling vortex. Ass fuck, cucumbers, chickens, anal wands, whipped cream, blindfolds, vaginal piercings, the girl at the bus stop, Britney Spears videos, Sarah’s mouth moaning, Mrs. Dunbar biting a pillow. A tornado! And there’s the Wicked Witch of the West on her broom stick, except she’s naked, and she’s rubbing herself against the broom, sliding back and forth, back and forth. Bad witch, ohhhh, bad bad bad witch. Ohhhhhh!!!!!! BAD WITCH! BAD WITCH!! I fumble for the cup, get the lid off just in time as Marvin throws up. I look at my cellphone and note the time: 8:41 a.m.
I clean up my paper and write my name and time on the cup. I inspect my sample. Is it big enough? Am I producing enough sperm for Sarah? Maybe I’ve been choking the life out of my testicles with my boxer briefs. Maybe I should just wear plain old boxers? I use a tissue to grab the sample of the other guy who was before me and compare. I’m at least double. I note the name, Jerry Thompson. Jerry has hardly any sperm. I put the samples back and feel better that at least I have more juice than pitiful Jerry has.
I move out into the empty hall and shut the door behind me. I walk toward the waiting room. I glance and see another man about my age sitting there. I don’t make eye contact with anyone, just dash out the front door. Now I have to catch a bus to work.
The Cube
I hate my job.
My government-laminated ID card dangles around my neck, bouncing and bobbing against my chest as I walk toward the scrutinizing eyes of the security guard. I pass by him and wait silently for the elevator with other bureaucrats. When I get to my floor, the air changes. It’s recycled air, like on a jumbo jet. Something artificial about it. Unhealthy. I make my way through the rat maze of cubicles, listening to the soft clacking of keyboards, the sounds of scurrying insects as I go. When I get to the men’s washroom, I’m there. My cube is next to the can.
I sit down on my black five-wheeled adjustable rolling chair with light-green fabric seat and backrest. I look to my right and see my Scooby Doo action figure sitting in the miniature blue foam sofa, a creative innovation of the stress ball that I picked up at a tech conference last week. Shaggy is positioned between Scoob’s legs as if he were giving him head. I surmise this choreographed piece of plastic bestiality is the work of my co-worker and only real friend on the floor, Phil. At this I smile. Then I go about brewing myself an against-fire-regulations cup of coffee using my still while my machine boots up.
I work as a computer programmer for the Technology Branch of the Ministry of Revenue Collection (MRC), better known to most folks by its old-school name: The Tax Man.
I drink my coffee black. It matches my personality here at work. That’s not entirely true. People like me. They think I’m good-natured and humorous. At least I think that’s what they think. Who really knows? I don’t give a rat’s ass either way. Well maybe that’s not really true either. I want people to like me. Sometimes I ramble.
COBOL is my bread and butter. It’s an old programming language that most of MRC, the Ministry of Data Collection, and big banks run on. It stands for COmmon Business Oriented Language. It should really be CBOL, but COBOL sounds better. It almost seems as if they put that extra ‘O’ there just for me, a hole that sucks all of my time and energy, which has led me to my latest book idea.
More than anything I want to spend my days writing. So why don’t I just quit and write? Bills, my friend, bills. I have a mortgage to pay and a beautiful wife. Why should she suffer for my writing career? Suffering for art is one thing, but making others suffer for your art is another. Besides, if you realized how much I hated my job, you would know I’m truly suffering for art. It’s not the work I hate (I actually love coding); it’s the environment. It’s this cubicle land of government hell that I find myself in.
My cubicle is a quad. That means I share it with three other people. We all used to have our own workspaces until the Government Accommodations Initiative to maximize space and minimize spending was thrust upon us. It was sold to us as a great way to foster a team environment. We moved from tolerance to our current state of being: we do our best to ignore one another.
On my left sits Carla, a tall thin woman who has that emaciated vegan look to her. She’s completely obsessed with germs – the female version of Howard Hughes. She usually comes in shortly after I do, while I’m in the middle of my morning email review. First thing she does is take a couple of hits off the big bottle of hand sanitizer (the only item on her desk aside from her computer) and rubs her hands together feverishly. Then she retrieves a bottle of cleaner and a roll of paper towel from her filing cabinet and gives her whole desk a hose down. Finally she sits down, removes a bottle of water from her backpack, and has exactly three small sips before removing the dust cover from her keyboard and turning on her machine. I have been witness to this antibacterial ceremony every working day for the last four years. I don’t know where Carla lives, what she does in her spare time, or if she lives with anyone. As I said, we do our best to ignore one another.
Behind me sits Dan. I have no idea what Dan does except show up here at the office (occasionally that is, when he isn’t incapacitated with some sort of mysterious illness) and talk in explicit detail about the latest medical procedure some butcher of a doctor has performed on his failing body. Recently it’s been his teeth. Sometime last week after Dan ate a tuna sandwich for breakfast, he proceeded to lift the side of his upper lip exposing his gums and a green-onion-encrusted molar, the way you would inspect a dog’s teeth. He told me how they had to put in a bridge. Needles, drilling, bleeding, pain – for forty-five minutes I listened and inhaled the fumes of Clover Leaf. The next day Dan called in sick.
Next to Dan and behind Carla sits the German feminist revolutionary and chain-smoker, Brita. She’s at war with everyone and everything. Her hair is cropped military/lesbian short and today she’s wearing a tight, black, studded dog collar, green camouflage fatigue pants, black boots, and a baggy, grey sweatshirt. I’d say that she cusses like a truck driver, but I don’t think that a drunken truck driver would cuss as much as Brita. If it weren’t for the angry getup, Brita would actually be quite an attractive woman. However, I don’t think she has any interest in men, or women for that matter. She pretty much hates everyone. Everyone is a sack of shit, according to Brita, and everyone needs to know that our lazy North American capitalist way of life is causing the poor of the world to suffer terribly, enslaving its children and killing our environment. I do believe that Brita cheered when the World Trade Center went down. She’s the female version of Brad Pitt in Fight Club.
In terms of coding styles, Brita and Carla are pretty mu
ch on the same page. Carla’s code is aseptic – every IF, END-IF and TO are all lined up, everything easy to read, very clean. Brita’s code is sparse, raw, and as a result also very clean. Dan, on the other hand, well, his code works okay but it’s often convoluted, hard to follow and generally a mess.
There are seven emails in my inbox. One from Operations telling me that one of my batch jobs abended last night – a fancy way of saying that one of the programs, for which I’m responsible, broke down. I note the program name and delete the email. There is an email about a fundraiser bake sale for our Christmas lunch, even though it’s only July. I delete it. There is an email from management that the amount of photocopying on the floor is too high, and to please use the photocopier responsibly. I delete it. Tracey, a girl I used to work with who now works for the Ministry of National Safety, sent me a piece of chain mail: if I forward it to ten people my wish will come true in ten minutes. I delete it. Somebody I’ve never heard of is going to be Acting Director, replacing somebody else I’ve never heard of. I delete it. A friend has forwarded me an MPEG of something entitled “Monkey Balls,” but I’m firewalled here at work, so I delete it. Finally, there is an email from Phil wondering if I can get away sometime this week and hit the Werner Herzog retrospective at the Bytowne Cinema; Fitzcarraldo is playing on Thursday. I write him back that I’ll check with Sarah. I delete the email as Carla walks in.
Squirt, squirt goes the hand sanitizer.
Writing
As I’ve mentioned, I want to be a writer. Science fiction/horror, this is my genre. For over eight years now, I’ve been pounding away at the keys, even managing to get a few short stories published – well two exactly, and one poem in an online zine. Not much I know, but you have to start somewhere.
I’ve received some positive feedback from editors such as “Almost went with this one, but ultimately the round table voted against it,” or “For what it’s worth, some of the editors said it would make a great movie. Good luck with your writing.” Can you call that positive? I cling to the tenuous.
The Cube People Page 1
