by Mike Miner
CUT TO:
MATTHEW’S face is pressed against a wall. A familiar position.
CUT TO:
INT. MEN’S ROOM
MATTHEW steps out of the stall and walks to the sink. The same VALET stands in the corner. Neither makes any sign of recognizing the other. MATTHEW turns the water on. The VALET picks up a towel. MATTHEW looks at his reflection. His REFLECTION shakes his head.
FADE OUT.
LUKE 2
The day Luke quit his job began as a typical Monday; early and reluctant. Nothing momentous, nothing out of the ordinary. Up at six, out the door around seven. Cold outside. Freezing. The usual coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts. He kept it against his chest and waited for the T.
A green and white caterpillar, the inbound trolley rattled down Commonwealth Avenue gobbling up commuters. Too cold for wind, the air had either frozen or vanished altogether. When the trolley reached Harvard Avenue, Luke hopped on and the giant worm slithered toward the city.
On the T, he was once again overwhelmed by the variety of humanity the city offered. The entire ecological food chain was represented from the Brooks Brothers-clad broker standing by the front door, to the homeless man hoping to beg enough crumbs to put a morning drink together. Luke felt closer to the bum than the broker.
He sipped his jumbo Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, coveting the warmth, and watched a fat, bald man read The Boston Globe with a furious expression, as if the paper were slandering his mother. A small woman wearing large glasses and layers of quilts sat next to the man, sneaking a read. With sudden venom, the fat man would turn the page, startling the woman every time. The Super Bowl maintained the headlines above the fold for a second straight day. Ray Lewis was the MVP. When the fat man reached his stop, he crumpled his paper under his arm and pulled himself out of his seat. The quilted woman watched him leave as though he had stolen something from her.
A whisper of movement in the air outside. Fluttering shadows. Playful today, teasing.
The T burrowed underground and they vanished, their chattering swallowed up by the clanging and grinding of wheels on train tracks. When he saw the miserable brick facade of his office building, the thought of quitting had still not entered his mind.
Luke worked at a job he didn’t much like or understand in the human resources department of a construction management company. He got along with everyone in his office and every time he got to thinking it was time to make a move and do something real with his life, someone above him actually did and Luke was promoted. He owed his success to the unhappiness of his superiors. As if by magic, an office and an assistant were at his disposal. The office had a window and enough privacy for Luke to daydream a good part of the day away. He was distracted from his daydreams about once a week by the terrifying image of himself in this job, in this office, for the rest of his life. At thirty. At forty. Fifty.
A ten o’clock meeting waited for him. Nobody knew what it was about. Everyone wondered. Business wasn’t good. He was the last one there. Rows of silent, somber faces watched him take a seat. Reggie, the department head, sat at one end of the long conference table. Jowly, competent, nervous in a gray suit and gray hair. Next to him was a man Luke had never seen before, clearly the most important person in the room. All of Reggie’s movements deferred to the gentleman, who could not be called anything else. He wore an elegant three-button suit and a serious, intelligent expression. His hair was bright silver made brighter by a healthy tan. No one made a peep until Reggie cleared his throat.
“I would like to introduce you all to Mr. Ed Timbrell, President of Overlook Enterprises, our parent company.”
Sitting in this meeting, listening to an important stranger tell him what had to be done, Luke felt a stirring inside. A loathing. For himself. For this job. For Mr. Ed Timbrell. He watched the expressions of his co-workers, tired, sad, beaten, joyless. He knew he looked exactly the same. Pretending to listen. Pretending to care. “I’m sorry to be meeting most of you for the first time under these circumstances,” Mr. Ed said.
What circumstances? Luke wondered.
“This business. Our business,” Mr. Ed stood his fingers up on the conference table like he was about to play the piano, “is in trouble. This quarter, we will fall ten percent short of projections. The latest numbers indicate a trend toward less building.”
Luke had an image of numbers, roman numerals maybe, huddled in a dim room discussing the latest construction trends in grim whispers.
“Less building, as you all know, means less business.”
Somber heads nodded somberly. For some reason, Luke was filled with mirth, had to suppress a grin.
“So this is what will happen. Draconian steps must be taken.”
Draconian. After Draco, Luke remembered. Athenian lawgiver. Also a constellation.
“Imagine a ship at sea. But the wind has stopped.” Mr. Ed looked at the room of people to see if his point was sinking in. Apparently it was. “Cargo has to be unloaded. Budgets must be cut.” His eyes lit up as the homily reached its climax. “Spending will be cut and savings will increase.”
It seemed so simple. “I have outlined a basic plan to Reggie and he has communicated this plan to key members of his staff. These cuts must be made in order to save jobs. Unfortunately, some jobs will be lost.”
That got everyone’s attention. “We need to work together as a team with one goal in mind.”
What goal?
“Increase efficiency to increase productivity to make more from less.”
Mr. Ed continued to talk. Luke stopped listening. He was getting sleepy. Finally Mr. Ed seemed to be reaching an ending.
“If everyone joins the effort, the company will survive. That will be all.”
Murmuring, everyone got up and left, as though the room were sighing, exhaling Luke and his coworkers.
“What a bunch of bullshit,” he muttered to his assistant when he got back to his office.
He stared out of the window, a prisoner, unable to make himself care about the fortunes of the company or the possible impact on him. His office seemed to sense his thoughts, seemed to turn on him. Scratching noises from the inside of his desk drawers. The high pitched squeals of trapped things. Luke stood and backed away. Not again. A tapping. On the window? He didn’t want to look. No, from the door. What the fuck was that?
Luke needed to escape. A familiar feeling was building inside him. A thousand butterflies were ready to erupt from his stomach. He ought to run out of the building before something happened, before someone got hurt.
The inflectionless voice of his boss, Emily, on the other side of the door, “Luke are you in there?” She was doing the knocking.
The sweat running down Luke’s back turned cold. “Yes, Ma’am.”
He opened the door. In the hall, a coworker, Jill, darted into her office unwilling to meet his eyes. Emily walked into his office. Luke wavered for a moment not wanting to shut the door. A bad smell came off his boss. Blood? Like she had just fled the scene of a crime.
Emily wasn’t unattractive but her social awkwardness and mannish voice could have an unsettling effect. Her age was tough to guess. Luke placed her somewhere between thirty-five and forty-five. Dressed, as usual, in a sharp black suit with a white blouse underneath, she was a bit of an enigma. There were rumors of two divorces and stories of her dancing professionally in New York. A strange smile greeted him after he sat at his desk. She looked like she’d just gotten rid of a body.
“Hi there. How’s your day going?”
“Never better.”
“You wouldn’t lie to me would you?”
He smirked. This was a frequent exchange between them.
“Well, we let Jill go.” She said it casually, not looking at his reaction.
He let out a long, silent sigh. Emily kept talking but he only processed bits and pieces. Catch phrases of Emily’s executive speak like, “increased responsibility, mind meld, SOP.” His secret monsters rattled his drawers, whispered to him. Th
ey invaded the pictures on his walls, old black and whites of Boston. Swarms of bats took to the skies, twirled around old lampposts, above the original Fenway Park.
Emily rambled on and on until he wondered what would happen if he stood and punched her in the nose. She was in pretty good shape though and would probably kick his ass—the kind of woman who took yoga and kickboxing classes at night to relax.
The bats in the pictures came closer, tiny bat hands seemed to curl out from cabinet doors. Blood roared in his ears as he forced out the words, “I can’t do it, Em.”
His secret monsters grew quiet.
For a moment, she looked like he really had punched her in the face. Had he? She blinked and tried to digest this surprise. It was like he had thrown a large rock into a still pond. He watched the ripples spread out from the point of disturbance, curious how far outside this office they would reach.
“What?” She looked around, as if for a weapon.
He met her eyes but didn’t speak. He figured she’d heard him.
“Why not?”
“I’m tired of all the bullshit. This place has been driving me nuts for a while. Today was the last straw.”
She nodded and pressed her lips together. She took off her glasses and leaned back in her chair.
“There’s bullshit everywhere, Luke.”
“Maybe.” And maybe there was.
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you give me two weeks?”
“What for?”
She shrugged. “Okay. At least let me fire you.”
“What?”
She smiled, pleased with herself. “I’ll fire you. I was gonna fire someone anyway. Hopefully Jill will stay. You can get two weeks’ severance and, if you need to, you can collect unemployment.”
He was genuinely moved by the gesture. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
He watched her thinking, already working it out in her mind, rolling with the punch. After a minute of looking past him at the wall she seemed to have worked it out. Like she saw his whole life pass before her eyes. What did she see?
“Okay. Finish out the day. Let your vendors know the deal. I’ll have a letter of recommendation and a list of contacts on your desk by five or six.”
“That’s above and beyond what you need to do.”
“I know.” She leaned back in her chair, looked at the pictures on her wall, and grinned. “Look, the bottom line is I’m jealous of you. I’d love to start over again, but I’m too fucking old. I’ve done it too many times. You’ve been a big help to me here and I appreciate it.” She met his eyes, “Okay?” They were softer than he remembered, bluer.
“Okay.”
She rubbed her eyes. “What a fucked up day.”
He agreed.
After she left, he opened the now quiet desk drawers. Nothing. Staples and paper clips and white out. Then his window grabbed his attention. The sky resembled an ash milkshake. The bats were gargoyles, decorating the tops of buildings. His Dad was going to kill him. Luke’s mind played out a few scenarios. None of them went very well. Maybe it was time for a drink.
Grille 23. The usual power lunch crowd. A blue tie on a blue shirt under a black suit was the look of the moment. Luke took off his red tie, unbuttoned his top button. Another sip of his martini made him wince. How did Matthew drink those things? Luke had decided to treat himself to a nice meal. One more sip and he started to relax. The butterflies had quieted. Over the years, he’d tried many things to bring his imagination under control. Quaaludes put him into a foggy, scary dream world, marijuana started out mellow but sooner or later paranoia would set in. Alcohol was the most reliable. The waitress came by and he ordered a Sam Adams.
The place was jammed with hordes of business folk. A plague of clones. All wearing the right suit with the right hair cut driving the right car right into their fucking graves. “Goddamned rat race,” he said just as the waitress placed a beer in front of him.
“You got that right.” She looked tired. Sandy, a sign on her chest read.
“Thanks, Sandy.” He took a swig. “Much better.”
The well-dressed worker bees scurried back to their hives.
Dana showed up after the next beer. She looked like a million dollars, and change. A sight for tipsy, unemployed eyes.
“You look a couple of drinks deep already.”
“Fixing to get deeper.”
Later she said, “What did you want to be when you grew up?”
“A fireman.”
“Luke Flanagan, fireman. Tough to picture.”
“Yeah, but that’s a job. Not like these goddamned ass kissers.” He motioned to the whole restaurant. “They all need a drink to help ’em pucker up before they go back to work.”
Dana giggled. Her eyes, happy, were magic.
“A martini so they can stand the smell. But a fireman? Rescuing people, risking your life? That’s a job worth doing.”
Dana nodded. Sandy unloaded another round and took away the empties.
There was a faint buzz in the back of his brain about his lack of prospects but it could wait.
“I’m tired of settling.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want to do something worth doing. Be with someone worth being with.”
Dana rolled her eyes.
“Why are you rolling your eyes?”
“You’re worth being with.”
Luke sipped his beer.
“You just don’t know it, you dummy.”
“C’mon,” he whispered.
Dana grinned and rolled her eyes.
Back at her place, he made her eyes roll some more and as she panted and dug her nails into his back, he watched the whites of her eyes, savored this moment of pure pleasure. But it didn’t take long, after, for his mind to start to spin with thoughts of his uncertain future.
He decided to take a drive. No real destination. Told Dana he needed to be alone, figure his next move, clear his head. She asked if he cared what she thought.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”
It took a lot of back and forth to free his Jetta from the snow bank against the sidewalk. He saw the pilgrim hat next to the Mass Pike entrance ramp and took it. Headed south, still not sure where he was headed. Didn’t realize until he saw the exit for 84 East in Connecticut that he was going home. To face the music, he thought. Luke savored the distance as it dwindled with every passing sign for Hartford.
Pulling into his parents’ driveway, Luke pictured the scene inside:
“Mary!”
“What, David?”
“Are you expecting someone?”
“No.”
His mother walks into the family room to look out the big bay window, sees a pair of headlights shining down the driveway.
“Well who the hell is this then?”
He killed the lights and popped out of the driver’s seat, imagining their conversation:
“Oh it’s Luke,” his mother says.
“Better pour another glass, Mary,” his dad says.
“For him?”
“For me.”
Inside, they were right where Luke imagined they would be, wearing the same expressions he’d pictured on their faces.
“To what do we owe this pleasure?” Mr. Flanagan asked.
“Are you sitting down?” Luke asked.
“Oh Jesus,” Mrs. Flanagan said.
“I quit.”
Hysterical laughter was not the reaction he expected.
“He quit! Did you hear that Mary?”
Mary was laughing too hard to answer or make any noise. She began to hit Mr. Flanagan to make him stop.
“Are you guys drunk?”
“Here have a drink,” Mr. Flanagan said catching his breath. “It’s a long story.”
Their story didn’t make things any more normal.
“I guess that brings us up to date,” Mrs. Flan
agan said at the end. “Oh, and then you quit your job.”
Luke was speechless.
His old bedroom waited for him. With its old memories. Old dreams. Nightmares. He walked in, remembered the sound. Listened for it.
The scuttling from above woke him. Luke aged six or seven. He cried out. His mother came. Comforted him, patted his shoulder, cooed to him.
“Listen, Mom. Something in the ceiling.”
It started again. A dull scratching.
“It’s just branches against the house. That old crabapple tree.”
It did sound like that.
Several nights later, the noise again. But it was coming from above. Something inside trying to get out. What? And now movement. From one corner of the ceiling to the other side.
The terror swirled in his stomach, filled his lungs, bubbled out in a scream.
His father’s irritated groan. His mother’s bare feet moved from the carpet in their room to the wood floor in the hall. His door opened a crack.
Little fingers pointed. “There! Up there, Mom!”
“Where? What?”
“Something on the ceiling!”
A sigh. “Honey, it’s just —”
“It’s not! It’s right there! Turn the lights on.”
She snapped the switch. They squinted at the ceiling. Nothing. Another sigh. He fought his tears. Kept looking. But it was hiding.
“Tell that kid to go back to sleep,” his father protested. Mr. Flanagan would be up before dawn to get to the store to receive the grocery load, the dairy load, the produce load, turn on the ovens, fill the registers, unlock the doors.
Mrs. Flanagan raised an eyebrow. “Get back to sleep, Luke. There’s nothing here. It’s all in your head.”
But there was something.
The next night, his dreams grew wings and teeth and claws.
“Knock it off!” His father smacked him awake. “You’re okay.” A stern whisper. “You’re fine. Just a dream.”
Luke was too relieved that it was over to argue. Too tired to notice the pain in his face and arms that had followed him out of his dreams.
