“No more dragging your drunk ass up the stairs,” he said. “And she’ll completely freak out when she sees Stefan and Mr. Chung making out by the mailboxes like they do when Grandma Chung sends her biweekly check.”
Depressed as I was, the only thing that would cheer me up now would be hearing Mother’s tearful rendition of Jann’s desertion.
“I wonder why she wants to talk to me?” I mused.
Val said, “Who else is she going to call? Your grandmother? She takes more delight in your mom’s misfortunes than you do.”
Dialed her up. Val’s wrong, you know. I take delight in her good fortune, which is getting rid of that lumbering Swede.
Mother said Jann went back to his mama’s house, and she had called there repeatedly to no avail. Jann’s mama just says he’s sitting in their smokehouse, watching the chubs cure.
“Well, Mother, some men cannot break the old apron strings. They can’t commit to any woman while Mama is still around,” I said.
“That’s not it,” she sobbed. “He wanted to get married, but I said I wasn’t ready.”
You could have knocked me over with white-plumed pampas grass!
She continued, “He started thinking about it after I made that comment in the car about one day being her new daughter-in-law. I was just making a joke, but he’s obsessed with the idea. And now I’ve broken his heart and he’s left me.”
This was much worse than I’d suspected! “Mother, you must move immediately and leave no forwarding address. Change your phone number. Find some type of squat on the West Side to hole up in until he has completely forgotten you! Now, now!”
She blew her nose into the receiver and nearly knocked my eardrum out. “I don’t know, Ad. I can’t go back to squatting. I’d gotten used to tailgating Bears games and Roller-blading with Jann in Grant Park.”
“Mother! He’s just trying to force you into subservience. All he wants is a maid and a cook and a whore!”
She sounded puzzled. “Jann? No, I don’t think so. He’s a wonderful man, any woman would be proud to be his wife. He made the best smoked chubs and taught me to repair the leaky faucet. Your father didn’t like fixing things; he said it interfered with the natural order.”
I brought out the cannon. “You can stay here with Val and me. I’ll tell Jann you joined a convent in Cicero.”
She sounded sadder than ever. “I can’t believe he won’t see me. I don’t know if I could be married again, but how can I go on without him? We were going to take kickboxing lessons together. Maybe I could be a good wife. God knows it would be a lot easier this time, without children consuming every last … well, I mean—”
“Yes,” I replied coldly, “I quite understand.” Hung up and brooded over her words.
Val came in later, after I had changed into my white cotton nightgown with the blue daisies and frilly hem and settled down in bed. I took the Bible out of the nightstand drawer, searching out the comforting phrases about bad women sentenced to burn in fiery torment.
“Want to talk about it?”
I shook my head.
He looked at the Bible in my hands. “Thought you didn’t believe in God anymore,” he said.
“Of course I do. Someone’s got to make my mother pay.”
He parted the curtains on my window, letting in a veil of sodium light, and looked out across the gangway. “Ever hear that little dog cry over there? It’s driving me up the goddamn wall.”
My spirits were lifted at work when Jeff stopped me in the dungeon at the coffee counter and whispered that stage one of our plan would be going into effect tonight.
I whispered back, “How can we make sure everyone will see the website right away?”
He said he’d rigged up a way to send anonymous global e-mail messages throughout the building and that the first one alerting the staff to the site would go out tomorrow morning at nine.
“You need to have it written before you leave tonight, though,” he added.
“Me?” I squeaked. “You write it! Why do I have to?”
“Frankly,” said Fat Bald Jeff, “you have a talent for poison-pen letters that I have not.”
“What are you talking about?”
He said, “The letters to the CTA supposedly from Coddles.”
I gasped, looking around furtively. “How did you know? I never saved them on the computer.”
He smiled and lifted his shoulders modestly. “It’s cute how reckless nontech staff are about private electronic documents. Oh, don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. But can I count on you to write the introductory e-mail?”
Thought about it. Why not? Life was already a shambles, and my future—as neighbor to a suffocating old person and stepdaughter to a hulking Nordic bricklayer—rose before me like a black sun on the horizon. “Yes, you can. As they say, the only thing we have to lose is our change.”
He sighed. “It’s chains, Addie.”
“Oh. That makes sense. Although it’s so annoying, my handbag is always loaded down with pennies—” He just waved away my words and stumped back into the Hole.
Took the elevator back up to the second floor. They should have a bench in there. It’s tiring, standing all that time. Back in the cube, I found myself growing more excited about our plan. Felt like a renegade Robin Hood, stealing embarrassing info from the powerful. And with it, maybe we could help some poor zombies, or whatever.
I had been poking around in the photo archives and found a picture of Bev, Coddles, and Mr. Genett stuffing themselves at the Christmas party buffet as Big Lou, the erstwhile janitor, cleaned up the mess they left on the floor. Big Lou was fired shortly thereafter when the operations manager found company squeegees in Lou’s locker—according to Jeff, the OM planted them there after Big Lou found the OM feeling up the personnel director (a crotchety sea-hag) in the maintenance closet. Jeff agreed that the party photo could go on the splash page of the website; he wanted to use the caption PIGS AT THE TROUGH—WE’VE HAD ENOUGH! I’d pointed out that “trough” didn’t rhyme with “enough,” but he said if William Blake could rhyme “eye” with “symmetry,” then we, too, are allowed some poetic license. I was surprised and impressed that Fat Bald Jeff read anything besides Libertarian propaganda and Star Trek pulp. In a merry mood, I shipped another journal off to the printer without proofreading the galleys once!
Have never experienced anything like this at the Place before. Perhaps I’ve found a new role for myself at work, helping the downtrodden. Our world is a harsh one; nobody knows this better than I.
At 12:05 I stepped into the staff lounge to retrieve my lunch bag. The graphic designers were sitting around the conference table outside the lounge, gorging themselves on bacon cheeseburgers. I looked disapprovingly at Francis. It’s disgusting that a boy concerned with the fate of cabdrivers in suspicious circumstances should so ill-use his gastrointestinal tract.
I sat at the table with them, though. Now that I am the publisher of the common man’s scandal sheet, I feel I should try to fit into their culture. Francis made room for me, but the delinquents barely gave me an inch. I believe the unenlightened also resisted Saint Benedict as he tried to raise them from their filth.
“I’ve been thinking over our discussion about Mumia,” I said, “and I’ve come to the conclusion that he is innocent and a victim of our corrupt police system.” I stole a sidelong glance at the others, who regarded me with superior skepticism.
“Excellent!” said Francis. “There’s a meeting at the anarchists’ collective in my neighborhood next week—”
“Well, now,” I interrupted, “no need to rush into anything. You’ve swayed me. Can’t I just wear a protest T-shirt under my sweater or something?”
The other boys snickered and got up from the conference table. Francis said that was true; we’d just start off slow and see where things went. I smiled brightly, but in truth I have no intention of entering a filthy anarchists’ den and carving aphorisms into my chest. After lunch, I saw Francis rootin
g around in the supply closet. I asked what he was doing, but he shushed me and glanced slyly over both shoulders.
He whispered, “I’m stealing sticker paper so I can make copies of these.” He showed me a manila folder with lots of stickers in it. Each had a slogan of some kind on it, like FREE LEONARD PELTIER or REMEMBER FRED HAMPTON, SENIOR, or BONGS NOT BOMBS.
“I thought you said it was Fred Junior” I commented.
“Junior’s in jail, serving eighteen years on a trumped-up arson charge. Senior was murdered by the cops in the middle of the night in the infamous Chicago Panther House Raid,” he said. “Don’t you know anything about Chicago history?”
“I know when the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre was: February fourteenth,” I said proudly.
“What year?”
Moved along quickly to another topic. One year is much like another in our city’s history of oppression.
“I’ll help you copy these,” I said.
“You?” he marveled. “Help a graphic delinquent steal office supplies to make political statements?”
I had no answer. All I knew was I felt bad for Big Lou, his name besmirched by planted evidence, and it made me reconsider my judgment of these incarcerated fellows. Even though I have no idea what I’d say to Mumia over tofurkey-havarti sandwiches, I guess we’re all sort of humans here together.
We stole some sticker paper out of the supply closet and made many copies of his slogans. He asked if I would like one. The one that appealed to me most had a simple elegance about it: just a white background with black type that read FREE MUMIA.
“But Mumia is only one man—I mean, of course I support the principle, but his case could be settled any minute …” I certainly didn’t want to be stuck making a passé political statement.
Francis stared at me with cold censure. He informed me that Mumia was a symbol as well as an individual and that his name would always inspire revolution in people and motivate them to fight for the rights of all political prisoners. I must say, Francis’s new assertiveness was unexpected—even a little thrilling! Perhaps one day, if our website was ever exposed, people would associate Fat Bald Jeff with insurgence and workingman bravado, instead of techie geekishness and angina.
“And BONGS NOT BOMBS?” I asked. “What is that a symbol of?”
He smiled sheepishly. “That’s a personal crusade.”
I took a BONGS NOT BOMBS sticker for Val.
Together we posted my new sticker on the nameplate outside my cubicle. Felt very revolutionary. No one could say that I was afraid to voice my opinion on cabdrivers in suspicious circumstances.
By day’s end I had finished my e-mail message for Fat Bald Jeff and delivered it in code. Planned to leave at four-thirty since the day was warm and Val and 2F were going to be working in the garden this evening. Peeked down the corridors in case Coddles was prowling about, then tiptoed down the hall. Wait, what was that bit of scribbling near my FREE MUMIA sign? I went back and looked closely. Someone had scrawled—in the coarse illegibility of the criminally insane—the words WITH EVERY PURCHASE below my slogan! I like being a rabble-rouser, but I hate working with the common man.
Chapter 8
TO: All NAL staff
FROM: Crook-Eye, Ltd.
RE: The disgusting truth
[Note to zombie staff: please enjoy the following open letter to the NAL power brokers]
Dear Petty Dullard:
Who said the revolution will not be televised? Let us rephrase that: we transmit the incriminating information; the revolution is up to the people.
Perhaps you ought to start by sequestering yourself in a safe environment. Who knows how your underlings will react when they discover that you—oh, well. Why spoil the fun of letting you find out for yourself? You must have some idea … right now, in fact, thoughts are racing through your brain: Has someone found out my secret? Copies of my corporate credit card statements? Kiddie-porn sites bookmarked on my office computer? My dalliance with married coworkers on the floor of the staff cafeteria? Just keep in mind that videoconferencing cameras come in very handy, and are quite easy to control from remote, untraceable locations.
Your peccadilloes would be comical if they weren’t so sickening. We believe in intellectual freedom and equal access to information, so please accept our invitation to browse at your leisure our new website: www.crook-eye.org. After all, everyone should see him-or herself in print—or digital imaging—at least once! The Information Age will indeed be a profitable one—for some of us.
Sincerely yours,
Jesus Maria
Crook-Eye, Ltd., project manager
Had we known just what effect our introductory e-mail and website would have on the National Association of Libraries that fateful morning, we could have set up cameras to record for posterity the massive freak-out that occurred at exactly nine o’clock. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the corridors! Fat Bald Jeff programmed his home computer to send out my global e-mail to all staff first thing in the morning, and as two hundred frantic zombies simultaneously tried to access the Internet, the entire system network crashed. Busy techies struggled for hours to get things up and running again. I played solitaire with a real deck of cards at my desk. It’s awfully slow that way, but easier to cheat.
Coddles locked himself in his office shortly after the morning’s announcement. I don’t blame him. No one respects the authority of middle-management infantilists. Mr. Genett stormed around the halls, knocking bank art off the walls and fuming. Perhaps he shouldn’t have redecorated the executive bathroom in favor of purchasing proper equipment for our department! Jeff and I listed that offense on a page titled “Let Them Eat Cake,” along with other luxury items bought by the executives on staff budgets. Never really felt akin to the personnel peons before I found out their department head spent three hundred dollars of their weekly budget on fancy coffee for a personal percolator and floral bouquets for her office suite and private bathroom. This forced the personnel peons to use obsolete software and monochrome computer monitors. Also in that section was a transcript of a personal long-distance phone conversation held by the finance director the same day he announced that staff would no longer be able to make personal calls from work, due to budget cuts.
“Administration 101,” culled from pirated e-mails that Jeff had routed to his home computer, listed the various unpaid assignments that bosses now expected from their secretaries and assistants, including: buying presents for girlfriends; lying to irate wives on the phone; ordering food; misting plants; and picking up dry cleaning, schoolchildren, expensive coffee, and small dogs from groomers. Only a photograph could adequately explain Miss Fernquist’s gross duties to Coddles. Good thing Coddles was too dumb to know how his videoconferencing camera worked, or that Jeff had been able to rig it up through closed circuitry, record the antics on Coddles’s desk, and transmit them to the hovel computer via MPEG format for subsequent review.
Lura and Bev came into my cubicle and gossiped about the website for ages, wondering who put it up.
“I don’t see why I had to be included in that first picture,” complained Bev. “I’m just a copyeditor, not management. And what’s with ‘Pigs at the Trough’? I was just eating a Christmas party snack like everyone else. Why should I be singled out?”
Because you’re a greedy, vile sow, and you’ve always been mean to me.
Lura said, “They probably just wanted to show Mr. Genett and the other managers scarfing food while the janitor cleaned up after them, and you happened to be in the shot.”
Bev said, “I heard from Lynn, the accounting receptionist, that the fourth-floor department head is lining up people outside his office to be interrogated. The brass is determined to find out who’s behind the website.”
“You don’t think they’ll do that on our floor, do you?” I asked. This could be a problem. I cannot hold up under fierce inquisition.
Lura stepped back into the hallway and looked both ways. “I
don’t think so. Mr. Genett is standing outside Coddles’s office with the maintenance guys right now, holding a blow torch.” We gophered around the side of my cubicle and watched them melt the lock. When they threw open the door, Mr. Genett bellowed, “Albert! Come out from under your desk!” and stalked into the office. We could hear Coddles weeping.
“I can’t believe he’s crying,” I said.
“He got caught buying a blowup doll on the company credit card!” retorted Bev. “There’s digital pictures of Fern-quist diapering him on his desk! Why shouldn’t he cry?”
Lura said dryly, “The bigwigs always cry when they get caught.” Just like television evangelists!
We listened to Mr. Genett tear into our blubbering supervisor, shouting, “You’ve disgraced our department!”
Coddles continued to cry. “Why don’t you find out who’s responsible for this horrible thing? Maybe it’s one of our own staff.”
Mr. Genett said, “Please. Who in your unit is bright enough to come up with this? Those punks in graphic design or the lazy girls in editorial? Our gutless salesmen? Production? The production people get lost in the back stairwell.”
Coddles cried, “Well, it’s probably them!”
“We’re not lazy,” whispered Lura angrily. I was aghast that Bev was lumped into the girl category with Lura and me. He can’t possibly think we three are from the same generation.
When Mr. Genett emerged from Coddles’s office, the entire department had gathered in the hallway to listen to the fight. No one said anything as Mr. Genett waded through the crowd. He knew we had heard his insults.
Before Mr. Genett reached his office, he turned and screamed at us to get back to work. Everyone made vague movements toward their cubicles, and Mr. Genett went into his office and slammed the door. One of the graphic designers gestured rudely at the closed door, and a lone salesman applauded.
Felt as though I was part of a revolution, if only covertly, and was glad I had worn my red silk scarf today. Wanted to brag about my involvement with the website but remembered I had no friends. My coworkers one by one drifted back into their cubes.
Fat Bald Jeff Page 12
