No one said anything for at least a minute. The silence was uncomfortable, not because we were ashamed of ourselves for laziness. Quite the opposite. Our silence indicated a dramatic revelation was descending upon us that we were all highly paid professionals that did little more than “jack squat” during a majority of the work week.
“Come on guys. It’s not that bad an idea is it?” A tinge of pleading had graced Brian’s expression.
Finally, Jerry scanned the faces around the table. “Anyone play Texas Hold ’Em? I’ll bring a deck tomorrow and if anyone else is interested bring your loose change and we’ll play penny ante.”
Roman rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I’ve got a mini-fridge out in the garage that I haven’t used in ages. I bet it still works.”
Not wanting to be left out, Asher announced that he had a portable stereo he could spare.
Brian beamed. “Okay, we start tomorrow. Let the good times roll at The Annex.”
3.
The “good times” continued uninterrupted for the following six weeks, with all of us completing our work collectively before “playtime” could begin. Then, slowly, Asher began to withdraw from some of the group activities. For a few days, he would exit early from the spontaneous poker tournaments. After a few more days, he began to gravitate towards spending more time in his office, only interacting with us when it was absolutely necessary. Finally, I realized that it had to be addressed.
“Guys, I think something might be going on with Ash.” My voice started to rise slightly, and I became acutely aware of its volume. I adjusted accordingly. “It’s not really like him to be this antisocial. Even when we were over in the other building, he never kept to himself like this, and thatplace was totally devoid of anything resembling a social atmosphere.”
Brian, always the pragmatist, cocked an eyebrow. “Right, so let’s get this over with. Who’s gonna talk to him?”
Jerry squirmed in his seat, obviously uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. “Whoa, who said anything about talking to him?”
Immediately irritated with Jerry’s flippant disregard for Asher, I fired back. “Jerry, he’s a friend. Don’t you think we owe it to him to see if there’s anything that we can do for him?”
Jerry pounced. “The fact is, bucko, you don’t know what’s going on. It could be very personal, and he might think that we’re prying somewhere we shouldn’t be.”
Roman turned towards me. “I think that’s a risk that we have to take. We’ll never know if there is something we can do to help unless we ask.”
“But who’s going to approach him about it?” I knew that I certainly had no desire to be the one.
Brian, sensing the awkwardness of the situation, offered a solution. “Why don’t we all go?”
Curt, who had been silently observing, finally leaned forward to enter the conversation. “Okay, now you must be joking. Yeah, here’s an idea. Let’s approach Asher by ganging up on him. If there really is a personal issue, I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to open up with all of us interrogating him.”
More silence.
I nudged Curt. “You think maybe if the two of us went in, it would be less awkward?”
* * *
“Ash?”
“Gentlemen. What I can do ya for?” It was the greeting Asher used almost without fail. He still seemed to think it was genuinely humorous, despite the fact that everyone had heard it nearly every day.
“Well, Ash, we were talking with, you know, some of the other guys out there and—” Curt was faltering quickly.
I picked up the slack. “Curt and I, and well, the rest of the guys—well, we were just wondering if everything was okay with you. You haven’t been socializing with us as much lately. Well, really at all, actually.”
Curt looked at me as if to say, “Way to go there, sport. You really nailed that.”
I shrugged.
Asher looked up from his computer screen, presumably with a heated game of Internet Hearts in progress. “Look, fellas. I appreciate your concern, but with all due respect, it isn’t really any of your business.” I was taken aback at just how forcefully he spoke those final words. He clearly had no intention of playing this game with Curt and me.
But before we had any chance to defuse the painfully uncomfortable situation we had created, Asher’s face contorted as he clearly decided to complicate the current state of affairs by relenting. “Close the door.”
We immediately obliged.
* * *
“Wait a minute, Ash. Are you telling me that your wife died and you didn’t bother to mention it to any of us?” My mind was numb with a strange mixture of shock, dismay and a hint of betrayal. We had grown so close over the past months.
Asher’s chin began to quiver ever so slightly. “Two weeks ago, Thursday.”
Curt decided to relieve me for a few moments by taking over our end of the conversation. “Ash, you should have told us. We would have been at the funeral. Really, you know, we’re here for you. Why didn’t you take some time off?”
Asher wore a childlike expression of terror and confusion. “There hasn’t been a funeral yet, a-a-and…I-I can’t go back there. I can’t go home. It just isn’t right anymore.”
Curt was shocked. “What do you mean you can’t go home?”
Almost as if on cue, I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be an oversized black canvas duffle bag peeking out from under Asher’s desk.
I had no choice but to press for an answer. “Ash, how long has it been since you’ve been home?”
He looked at us, fresh moisture collecting at the corners of his eyes. “Since that night.”
I continued, distressed by his obvious anguish. Searching for something positive to add, I asked, “Well, do you have any family? Are they coming for the funeral? I mean, now is really the time that you need to spend with your family. Do you want me to call someone for you?”
“Lydia and I didn’t have any children left. Our only son died fighting in Nam.”
Acknowledging the mess I had just made, Curt waved me off. “So, Ash. Help me understand. Is the funeral business just too hard for you to deal with? Because we can help you with that. We’ll go and help you through the process if you want. Just tell us what to do.”
Asher buried his face in his hands and began to sob uncontrollably. He muttered something unintelligible through his hands that neither Curt nor I could make out. He kept repeating it over and over, until we were just barely able to comprehend.
“I’m just so ashamed.”
A strange stirring that began to feel a little like dread overtook me, as the sudden sense overcame me that we had stumbled into a place we definitely did not belong. Curt, apparently as surprised as I was, widened his eyes and looked directly at me.
“What exactly are you ashamed of, Ash?” I ventured. I really had nowhere else to go.
The relentless sobbing continued.
I added a prudent amount of urgency to my voice. “Ash, I need you to tell me. What are you ashamed of? Are you ashamed that you can’t face the people at the funeral home? Tell us where she’s at, and we’ll go with you.” Immediately, an appalling thought slithered its way into my mind. “Ash, listen to me. Did you tell anyone about your wife’s death?”
The wails of agony paused momentarily, and for the briefest of moments, it appeared that he shook his head.
I had to be absolutely sure of what I had seen. “Ash, I need you to look at me now. Come on. Look up here.” Success. “Where is your wife right now? Is she still in your house?”
Tears literally exploded from his eyes as waves of despair gripped his body. His entire frame shook violently. Curt and I looked helplessly at each other, dumbfounded, unsure of how we should deal with such bizarre and unsettling news. After a few more moments, the grief appeared to lose some of its stranglehold on Asher, and he composed himself as best he could. He began to recount the evening without any further prompting from us.
He had been having dinner with his wife the week before last. They had been discussing the garden in the back yard and how they needed to re-plant some of their flowerbeds. Then suddenly, in mid-sentence, Lydia was silenced. Her eyes glazed over as her head slammed into her bowl of split-pea soup. Thick green liquid flew everywhere as her face smashed through the bowl. Shards of the shattered soup bowl sliced into her face near the temple, chin and left eye. The resulting mixture of blood and soup created some sort of twisted Christmas-colored nightmare.
Asher proceeded to tell us that in his shock, he pulled her out of the soup, brought her as gently as possible down to the floor and tried to administer CPR. He’d never taken any classes, so he was only able to imitate what he had seen on TV over the years. When he finally realized that his efforts were for naught, he just lay on the floor next to her, holding her hand and saying over and over again how much he loved her.
He explained that finally, when the grandfather clock in the foyer struck 3:00 AM, he tried to pick her up to take her into the bathroom to clean her up. When he was unable to lift her, he struggled with all the strength he could summon to place her back in her chair at the dinner table. He went into the kitchen to grab some towels, and when he returned, he slowly and carefully cleaned the soup and blood from her face. He cleaned up the mess on the table, and didn’t stop until the dining room was spotless.
“When everything was clean, I straightened her in the chair, closed her eyelids, and then I sat across the table from her until it was time to go to work. I kissed her on the cheek like I did every day after breakfast, and told her I would see her when I got home.”
Curt, visibly shaken, scrambled for something supportive to say. “Ash, we’re gonna help you through this okay?”
Steeling myself, I felt the need to hedge on the side of practicality. “Okay, Ash. I know this is hard, and I know how much you loved your wi—Lydia. But you have to call the police and explain what happened. Any time a person dies in the home, the police have to come and the medical examiner will probably have to be there too. Okay? Then they can take her to a funeral home, and we can help you with all of that if you want.”
Asher nodded slowly. Fragments of composure were beginning to return as he wiped his eyes with a tattered handkerchief.
He picked up the phone.
* * *
The next week was extraordinarily difficult for Asher. He had to explain numerous times to countless officials why he had let his wife’s body sit in the house for almost two weeks. Curt and I accompanied him during many of these interviews to show our support, and to lend credence to the idea that our friend was not crazy or senile, but merely in the grip of a grief so profound that it had prompted incomprehensible actions.
The funeral was very simple. Asher had spoken the truth when he said that he had no family left. The service consisted of a simple graveside ceremony. He had purchased a beautiful solid cherry casket for Lydia, and had ordered an extravagant marble headstone. All of The Annex colleagues attended. No one from the main office bothered to show up. The only evidence that they even acknowledged the loss was a small wreath of roses for the grave. The final insult for Asher was the card that accompanied the wreath that expressed Bernie Gordman’s extreme sadness at the passing of “Sylvia.” It was too much for him to take.
Asher turned in his letter of resignation the next day. He offered no other explanation other than “personal reasons.”
4.
The floor where Curt had suffered his humiliating defeat at the hands of Jerry was damp. The same could not be said for the front of his khaki pants. They were beyond damp to the point of dripping. Curt’s face was beet red, not from extreme humiliation, but from an inability to catch his breath from laughing so hysterically.
“Guess your name is in the drawing at the end of the day.” Jerry called out at the end of the hall. “I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t we just move you into the restroom? That way you won’t have to go far when nature calls.” Another roar of laughter.
Once the excitement died down, a temporary truce was called, and everyone pitched in to clean up the mess on the floor. To commemorate the event, a sign was posted in the hallway above the scene of the accident that read “Curtis Randolph Brunen Memorial Bathroom.” We settled back into our offices after the cleanup and finished out or normal two-hour workday. As 10:00 AM neared, my phone rang with the familiar three-chirp cadence of an internal call. I picked up the phone and answered with my normal greeting.
I was greeted by a husky falsetto voice. “Yes, this is Connie at the main office. I need you to FAX me last week’s report on the, uh, payroll spreadsheets for the hotel you were auditing.”
“The hotel payroll audits. I’m not sure which reports you’re talking about, because I did three last week. Let’s see. I’ve Superior Inn, Comfortplex Suites in Rochester, and um, oh yeah—Bite me Brian, you’re not fooling anyone. I can hear you through the wall. And by the way, your impression of Connie is terrible. Nice try, but I’m not setting foot in that hallway until Jerry leaves for the day.”
By the end of the day, everyone had been hit by at least one tennis ball. The need to urinate eventually toppled every last one of us, and we were forced to venture beyond the safety of our offices. Ironically, Curt’s name was the only one that was removed from the pool of names, after he launched a real zinger that connected with Jerry’s forehead. Jerry, after overcoming the shock of being hit so squarely, bowed gracefully to Curt and fished his name out of the bucket.
Directly across from Jerry’s overheating office was Asher’s old office. It had a perfectly functional air conditioning unit, but at no time was it suggested that his office should be offered to anyone. No one went in or out of that room, and the door remained closed and locked. The hurt we all felt for him was still too fresh. We figured that someday, we might be able to enter, and maybe even clean out his desk and drawers, but that day still seemed much too far off.
We heard little from Asher. He informed us that he would be taking some time to travel and reflect.
We missed our friend. We hoped that he missed us.
* * *
I ended up losing the raffle. I conceded defeat and summarily cleaned out my desk for the move down to Jerry’s office.
Hot was an understatement. And, much to my consternation, the summer was just beginning. I brought in an extra fan but the only thing it seemed to accomplish was moving the hot air around the sweltering space. I spent much of the next six weeks working in the common area, during hours from 8:00 to 10:00 AM. The rest of the time, we rarely spent at our desks. We had poker tournaments, coffee chats and CD-listening parties to attend to.
* * *
Six weeks after the now famous pants-wetting incident, I received a phone call at my desk. The familiar chime announcing an internal piqued my curiosity, since everyone else that worked in this building was out in the common area, involved in an intense Five Card Stud tournament.
I picked up my phone. “Gordman, Crucks and Associates, this—”
“Yes, hello. This is Greg from Bernie Gordman’s office. Could you please tell everyone over there that the second floor renovations are complete and that you will all be expected to be moved back into your offices by Wednesday of next week? Thanks so much.”
Click.
I dropped the receiver back into the cradle and slumped in my chair. How could I deliver such devastating news? I was not at all sure that there could be any going back to the way things were over at the main office. With a heavy heart, I returned to the common area.
“Gentlemen, I have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?”
The general consensus was “bad news first.” I relayed the message.
“So what’s the good news?” Roman asked.
I folded my arms across my chest. “Well, I was hoping I could make something up by the time I got done telling you the bad news. Guess I’m not that creative. I am an accountant after all.”
> Jerry stood up and laid down his cards. “What are we going to do, men? I mean, this is just too good of a thing to give up. We can’t just move back into that building and go back to pretending to work all day, and I’ll be darned if I’m going to ask for more work to fill up my days.” Everyone around the table chuckled briefly, before the pangs of truth silenced everyone. “I, for one, cannot do it. I mean, I guess I’ll have to for a while, until something better comes along. But I gotta tell you, I can’t hang with this company any more. Maybe it’s a personal problem. Maybe I should be more motivated.”
Jerry’s arms moved in grand gestures as he spoke. He stepped into his chair and stood as if on a soapbox.
“But, I’ll tell you this. The company is raking in more money than ever before, and we’re only putting forth about a tenth of the effort that we could be. Did any of you read the latest quarterly report? Revenues are skyrocketing. It’s obscene. And did any of you see a bump in your paycheck? I know I certainly didn’t.”
We all shook our heads.
“Well, I think it’s settled,” I said. “I say we all start looking for other jobs, and keep each other posted. If we find a better place to work, we’ll try to get everyone on board wherever that might be.”
The decision was unanimous.
* * *
The following Tuesday, our last official day in The Annex, with boxes packed, we all played our final hands of poker as the clock ticked down to 5:00 PM. AC/DC announced that they were “Back in Black” as the game drew to a close. After the final hand, Roman got up from the table, approached the water cooler, and spoke.
“You know, for the first time in my life, I’ve actually looked forward to coming to work. And now, I have to go back to hating my job? It just seems wrong. This is the most fun I’ve ever had in my professional life, and I’m not sure we’re going to find this anywhere else. I think that the only course of action at this point is to—”
The Annex Page 2
