Then We Came to the End

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ON NOT GETTING IT — BENNY SPOTS CARL — HOSING THE ALLEYWAY — MARCIA’S HAIRCUT — AN INADVERTENT OFFENSE — THE NEW BUSINESS — A REQUEST FOR GENEVIEVE — THE CAFETERIA — GOING UNDER — THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN JOE AND THE REST OF US — “THESE PEOPLE” — AN ELITIST — THE WATER TOWER — WHY IT WASN’T CYNICISM — THE GARDEN HOSES — JOE MAKES A DECISION

IN THE MORNING WE CAME in and hung our spring coats on the back of the door and sat down at our desks and sifted through last night’s e-mail for something good. We sipped our first cups of coffee and cleared our voice mails and checked our bookmarked websites. It might have been a day like any other, and we should have been grateful, ecstatic even, to find no declaration of bankruptcy waiting for us in our in-boxes and no officewide memo announcing eviction from the building. We had every reason to believe that payroll management still acknowledged our existence, that Aetna had been paid and remained committed to our well-being, and that no one had been granted a seizure order to repossess our chairs.

Why, then, did discomfort pervade the hallways and offices? What made this morning different from others like it?

The unfinished pro bono ads that had eluded us the day before. We had been asked — was it possible? — to create an ad that made breast cancer patients laugh, a strange and vexing assignment. What was the point of it? No matter. Our job wasn’t to ask what the point was. If that had been our job, nothing articulated to prospective clients in our capabilities brochure and on our website would have escaped our rolled eyes. The point of another billboard outside O’Hare? Another mass mailer on your kitchen table? Good luck mustering an argument for more of that glut. If we had to call into question the point, we’d have fallen into an existential crisis that would have quickly led us to question the entire American enterprise. We had to keep telling ourselves to forget about the point and keep our noses down and focus on the fractured and isolated task at hand. What was funny about breast cancer?

We didn’t have an answer, and it was making us nervous. Jim Jackers, fearing the blank page and searching for direction among the hoi polloi, was not the only one who suffered anxiety about turning in crap work. One crap ad could make the difference between the person they kept on and the one they let go. No one could say that was the criterion, but no one could say it wasn’t.

But it wasn’t just our jobs at stake, was it? When we had trouble nailing an ad, our reputations were on the line. A good deal of our self-esteem was predicated on the belief that we were good marketers, that we understood what made the world tick — that in fact, we told the world how to tick. We got it, we got it better than others, we got it so well we could teach it to them. Using a wide variety of media, we could demonstrate for our fellow Americans their anxieties, desires, insufficiencies, and frustrations — and how to assuage them all. We informed you in six seconds that you needed something you didn’t know you lacked. We made you want anything that anyone willing to pay us wanted you to want. We were hired guns of the human soul. We pulled the strings on the people across the land and by god they got to their feet and they danced for us.

What, then, were we to make of an empty sketch pad or blank computer screen? How could we understand our failure as anything but an indictment of us as benighted, disconnected frauds? We were unhip, off-brand. We had no real clue how to tap basic human desire. We lacked a fundamental understanding of how to motivate the low sleepwalking hordes. We couldn’t even play upon that simple instrument, embedded within the country’s collective primal cortex, that generates fear — a crude and single-note song. Our souls were as screwy and in need of guidance as all the rest. What were we but sheep like them? We were them. We were all we — whereas for so long we had believed ourselves to be just a little bit above the others. One unfinished ad could throw us into these paroxysms of self-doubt and intimations of averageness, and for these reasons — not the promise of gossip or the need for caffeine — we found ourselves driven out of our individual offices that morning and into the company of others.

“I could not believe it,” said Benny Shassburger, leaving his office just as we had settled in. This was an old trick of Benny’s — to abandon us at the moment we needed him most, so that we knew never to take him for granted. He stopped briefly in the doorway and turned back. “Hold on a sec while I fill up my coffee and I’ll tell you the whole story.”

We talked among ourselves until he returned. “Okay,” he said, coming into the room with a full mug and a trailing odor of stale coffee grounds. He sat down and the delicately webbed seat sank for him a little more than it did for the rest of us. He squared himself to his desk and said, “So who did I see this morning parked right outside the building but — what?” He stopped midsentence. He had something — “Where?” It was on his other cheek — we hoped to god he’d find it fast. He wiped his whiskerless face and looked down. “Doughnut glaze,” he said.

There were doughnuts? Benny’s story would have to wait for those of us wanting doughnuts. Those of us who’d already eaten, or who were watching their weight, or Amber Ludwig, who had just split open a brown banana and was already halfway through it, filling Benny’s office with its singular ripe musk — we sat tight.

Benny proceeded to tell us that he’d seen Carl Garbedian parked in the drop-off zone just outside the building, Marilynn in the driver’s seat beside him. Was it possible? Our understanding was that Carl and Marilynn were separated. “Of course they’re separated,” he said impatiently. “But if you’ll just let me tell you my story. .”

CARL SAT IN THE PASSENGER SEAT of the car looking out upon the day. There was his building, up ahead, with the beggar he knew so well sitting cross-legged near the revolving doors, tired this hour of the morning, it seemed, as he hardly had the energy to shake his Dunkin Donuts cup at all those entering. As Carl glanced around, he recognized people from the office converging upon the building, but nobody he cared to talk to.

Directly to his right, something curious was going on. Two men in tan uniforms were hosing down the alleyway — a small dead-end loading dock between our building and the one next to it. Carl watched them at their work. White water shot from their hoses. They moved the spray around the asphalt. The pressure looked mighty, for the men gripped their slender black guns, the kind seen at a manual car wash, with both hands. They lifted the guns up and sprayed the Dumpster and the brick walls as well. They spot cleaned, they moved refuse around with the stream. For all intents and purposes, they were cleaning an alleyway. An alleyway! Cleaning it! Carl was mesmerized. It was the sort of thing, six months ago, that would have sent him right over the edge, seeing these men, these first-generation Americans without much choice in the matter, spend their morning in the dark recess of a loading dock power-spraying the asphalt and the Dumpster — good god, was work so meaningless? Was life so meaningless? It reminded him of when an ad got watered down by a client, and watered down, until everything interesting about the ad disappeared. Carl still had to write the copy for it. The art director still had to put the drop shadow where the drop shadow belonged and the logo in its proper place. That was the process known as polishing the turd. Those two poor saps hosing down the alleyway were just doing the same thing. All over America, in fact, people were up and out of their beds today in a continuing effort to polish turds. Sure, for the sake of survival, but more immediately, for the sake of some sadistic manager or shit-brained client whose small imagination and numbingly dumb ideas were bleaching the world of all relevancy and hope. And meanwhile, that mad-bearded fellow there with his crossed legs could hardly lift his grease-caked hands to make it a little easier for someone to flip him a quarter.

“Well, we have to find some way of getting her in,” Marilynn was saying into her cell.

Carl turned his attention back to the noble fools scouring the bricks. Another thing that would have sent him spiraling was how quickly he could come up with the advertising copy designed to sell power sprayers to those shit-brained managers. “Uniform liquid distribution guarantees remarkable scouring intensity for maximum coverage and time efficiency,” he thought to himself as he watched the men work, “while the high impact of our spray angles makes cleaning any surface a snap!” His quick command of that cloying and unctuous language, that false-speak, while his wife was next to him talking to Susan about mammography results or negative drug reactions, whatever — it would have been all too much to bear.

But not so much this morning, not so much somehow. Oh, he was still clear-eyed and sober about the day’s dim prospects. He knew he had affixed himself, by some accursed fate, to this massive, mind-boggling effort — to work, to the polishing of the turds. And yet, he was changed. For Marilynn was beside him talking on the phone, and he felt no need to call her and leave a voice mail. He was not inclined to undress in the car. Marilynn had picked up the cell phone, and this was a delicate morning — the first morning after the first night they had shared together in six weeks. She might have had the good sense to ignore its ring until he had gotten out of the car. But no, she answered it as she always did, despite its being a delicate morning — yet when Carl searched himself, he did not feel ignored or preempted, at least not cripplingly so. Why was that? Because Marilynn had a job to do. Was it not that simple? Just as those men had to power-wash an alleyway, just as he had to polish the turd of an ad, Marilynn had to pick up the phone at inconvenient times and discuss estrogen receptors with goddamn Susan. Realizing this, he did not sit in the passenger seat pouting and devising schemes to draw her attention toward him. That, as he measured things, was progress. That was the promise of those little pink pills in their proper dosage. That was some kind of miracle. And when Benny shambled up and banged on the car window, it wasn’t Carl’s first instinct to dismiss him irritably, but to half-smile and offer a little wave. Benny being Benny, he went over to watch the unexpected pair from the drop box.

“No,” his wife said, “I don’t feel comfortable bringing him into this.”

Just then Carl noticed a woman crossing the street. She looked familiar, even if he had a hard time placing who it was right away. Suddenly it dawned on him. Unbelievable! — she was completely transformed. Into a vision. A genuine beauty. No Genevieve Latko-Devine, but my god, thought Carl, who could have guessed such a thing were possible? It was Marcia Dwyer, and she had cut her hair. Gone was that flap that crested just above her forehead like a hard black wave, gone was that wall of glossy curls that hung between her shoulder blades like a cheap curtain of beads. In its place was now a delicate and textured cut, short in the back, curving under her chin in front and free to move in the wind. Its color was no longer tar black but a rich chestnut brown. She looked as fashionable as a model in a shampoo commercial. Carl was overcome by the change. “I cannot — will you — Marilynn,” he said, tapping his wife, “Marilynn, will you look at that?” He was pointing through the windshield. “Do you see what I see?”

Marilynn was preoccupied at the moment, but Carl’s excitement was alarming. “Susan?” she said. “Susan, can I ask you to hold, please?”

“Marilynn,” he continued, “do you see that girl there, that woman?” He was pointing through the windshield. “Look right there, the one that just stepped up on the sidewalk, you see her?”

“The one carrying the denim purse?”

“Yes,” he said. “But — ignore that for a minute, if you can. And look at her! See her!”

“What am I looking at?” she asked.

“That’s Marcia!” he cried. “Marcia Dwyer! Marcia cut her hair!”

“Oh,” said Marilynn.

The two of them watched Marcia enter the building. Marilynn peered over at her husband, waiting for him to say something more. But he was still watching the building, lost to his thoughts. Marilynn waited another beat before resuming her conversation with Susan, just in case there was something more Carl wanted to say.

With some maneuvering to obscure the fact that he had been spying, Benny came around again to the Garbedian car. Benny dropped to a squat, and Carl rolled down the window.

“Did you just see Marcia Dwyer?” asked Benny.

“She looks terrific!” cried Carl.

Benny looked toward the building as if to catch a final glimpse. “She does look terrific,” he agreed.

“If I had had to place odds,” said Carl, “I would have said Marcia Dwyer would have gone to her grave with that old haircut. I never would have thought, not in a million years, that she would wake up out of it and realize how crappy she’s looked all this time.”

Benny looked back at Carl, who was not really paying any attention to him while he spoke.

“Would you really call her crappy-looking?”

“Not in a million years!” cried Carl, ignoring the question. “But she did! She woke up, looked at herself, and said no, this is not working out.”

“She has a cute face, don’t you think?” said Benny.

“And who cares,” said Carl, “if it was some stylist who suggested it. She went with it. She said yes! She said let’s make a change. Benny, it’s inspiring! It inspires me to want to lose some of this weight — I mean, look at this thing,” he said, looking down at his belly as if it were something quite independent of himself. When he looked up, he found that Benny had stood and was walking away.

A second later, Carl got out of the car and tried catching up with him. “Hey, man, wait up!” he called out. He forgot entirely about Marilynn. The good-bye kiss that at one time had been so important to him — not in and of itself, of course, but as a gauge of Marilynn’s morning attentiveness to him, of her willingness to put him before the phone call — must not have mattered much now, because without even saying so much as a good-bye, he abandoned his wife to catch up with his coworker. Marilynn, surprised by this, thought who-knows-what about Carl’s sudden departure. She asked Susan to hold on again and honked the horn. Carl looked back, realized that he had forgotten about his wife — she had just slipped his mind! — and halfway between the two, asked Benny to please wait while he said good-bye to Marilynn real quick. Being curious about what Carl had to say, as much as he was about what might happen back at the Garbedian car, Benny put a foot on the first stair leading up to the building and turned back to watch. Carl leaned through the passenger-side window, a few words were exchanged, and then the separated couple kissed each other good-bye. When Carl emerged from the car and headed toward Benny, he did so almost at a gallop, as if skipping a step for the sake of urgency — and that, Benny said, that he had never seen before.

“Carl hurrying?” he said. “I’ve never seen that before.”

That’s where Benny ended the story. But we sensed there was more to it. So at lunch hour, finding Carl’s door open for the first time in eons, a few of us went in. He was at his desk eating a low-cal Subway sandwich and drinking a diet iced tea. It was astonishing. We asked him for his version of events.

“I had completely forgotten about his crush on Marcia,” he told us, sitting back in his chair, “and I had just called her crappy-looking. What an idiot. So I told him, I said, ‘Benny, I’m sorry if I offended you back there.’ But he just shrugged it off. ‘You didn’t offend me,’ he said. ‘You offended Marcia, I think, but not me.’ So I said, ‘I completely forgot about your crush, man, I’m sorry.’ And he said, ‘My what?’”

It didn’t take long before Benny was spilling his guts down by the lake, which was only a few blocks east of us. The two men climbed over the breakers and stood at the edge of the runners’ path that dropped off into the water, where Benny admitted to Carl a love for Marcia that he called paralyzing. It was taking away his nights, he said. It was starting to hurt just seeing her in the halls. Sitting across from her in a meeting, that was torture. And coming upon her alone in the kitchen took his speech away. “And you know me,” he said to Carl. “I never lack for something to say. But now, I’m starting not to enjoy this.” “So what are you going to do about it?” asked Carl. Benny said what he always said, the same thing he had said to all of us: his love for Marcia was complicated because Marcia was not Jewish, and it was important to him — for reasons heathens like us couldn’t understand — that he marry a Jew. Stores a totem pole for three-nineteen a month and calls us heathens — that was rich, we thought. And what’s more, everyone knew it was just an excuse in case Marcia found out about the crush and didn’t like him back.

Benny’s crush wasn’t news. He had told each and every one of us about it at one point or another, and in great detail. The news wasn’t even Marcia’s haircut. Marcia had finally crawled her way out of her Megadeth-and-Marlboros origins and staggered into the fashionable reality of a new century, and her looks had improved for it. She was no longer reliving the smoke-and-screw glory days of George Washington High. Her haircut was a jump up in three income levels, it was a move to Paris, it was the opening of some seventh seal on the South Side, and if Benny’s encounters with her in the hall had smarted before, he was in for a world of hurt now.

Carl leaving the car without a kiss good-bye, that was interesting, too. Carl engaged with the world — when did that happen? After stealing Janine’s drugs, overdosing, poisoning himself into the hospital, and being released under a psychiatrist’s supervision, Carl had gone from reproachful insolence to mild indifference. But when did he go from indifference to galloping and gossiping and chasing after Benny? Had we been forced to lay down odds, all our money would have been on the unlikely haircut long before Carl leaving the car without a kiss from Marilynn.

But that wasn’t the news.

The news was delivered by Joe Pope, who came by Benny’s office to announce that in a few days, we would start work on two important new business pitches. A beverage company was about to launch their first caffeinated bottled water, and a popular brand of running shoe had seen their market share dip over the previous few years. Both were looking for new agencies and had graciously invited us to pitch them ideas. The next step was to present them with creative that would bowl them over. Joe didn’t have to tell us how important winning new business was, but he did anyway. “So we need to clear our plates of this pro bono project as quickly as possible,” he said. “You’ll be presenting concepts on what makes a breast cancer patient laugh first thing in the morning.”

“As in tomorrow morning?” said Benny. “I thought we had till next week.”

“Priorities have changed,” said Joe. “Now it’s tomorrow morning.”

“Christ, Joe,” said Larry. “You serious?”

It was like a fire alarm we weren’t even getting paid for.

“Is she in today?” asked Amber Ludwig. Her tone of voice and downcast eyes might have indicated she was inquiring of someone trying to pull out of critical condition.

“Is who in?” replied Joe. He knew who she meant. We all knew.

“Listen,” he said, moving more fully into Benny’s office. “Does anyone have anything to show her?”

Ordinarily we would have taken this question, coming from Joe, as a kind of accusation. But the reality was that no one had a thing, and so what was the point of dissembling? We just sort of stared at him.

“I don’t have anything, either,” he admitted. “Not a damn thing, and I’ve been thinking about it all night.”

It was good to hear that even he was struggling. He went on to offer us a few modest strategies he had come up with, general directions we might consider, which was kind of him. But that still didn’t help cushion the blow of his bad news, and in the end it didn’t get us any closer to figuring out what was funny about breast cancer.

GENEVIEVE WAS AT HER DESK, reading the breast cancer companion guide that had absorbed her attention yesterday evening after she’d finished the survivor’s memoir, when Amber came to her doorway. Genevieve put the book down and moved her blond hair behind an ear. “What’s up?” she said. Amber walked in and sat down, tucking one of her thick legs under the thigh of the other. “You don’t know about Karen’s phone call to the hospital yesterday, do you?” Genevieve shook her head and took a sip of her diet pop. She had not been with us during the call. “Then let me fill you in,” said Amber.

Amber spoke. Both women turned to look at Larry in the doorway when he appeared in his Cubs cap, popping M&M’s into his mouth one at a time. Amber turned back to Genevieve and continued talking while Larry moved inside and stood directly behind her.

“And remind her of her fear,” he said, interrupting. Larry had been convinced by Karen’s call to the hospital that Lynn’s cancer wasn’t a rumor after all.

Amber ignored him for the moment, but eventually came around to his point — Lynn’s aversion to hospitals. It would be extremely hard for someone in the grip of a fear of hospitals to willingly admit herself to one.

Benny Shassburger came to the doorway and in a low voice said, “Are you guys talking about Lynn?” Genevieve nodded, and Benny, his khakis rustling, moved through the office to the back credenza, where he placed a haunch on the sharp wood corner. “Here’s what I keep coming back to,” he said. And he went on to remind her that the pro bono ads, which concerned themselves with breast cancer awareness, arrived at the same time that she was going into the hospital. “Was that just a coincidence?” he asked.

“What are you trying to say?” asked Genevieve.

“That she definitely has breast cancer,” said Jim Jackers, who had been listening from the doorway. “And that she wants us to know about it.”

“Why would she want us to know?”

“I don’t know,” said Jim. “Maybe just subconsciously.”

Chewing on the last of his M&M’s, Larry Novotny now began to rub Amber’s shoulders with his free hands. Genevieve had turned in her chair to better talk with Benny, but her attention was pulled back to Amber when Amber abruptly stood and moved over to the chair closer to the wall. Larry, whose hands were still in the massage position, watched her go. Amber looked straight ahead at Genevieve, who looked at Larry, who lifted his cap in the air and smoothed back his hair. He left the office, passing Jim standing in the doorway.

Jim moved into the office and sat down in Amber’s old chair. Hank Neary came into the room and, looking around, squatted down with his back against the wall. He put his elbow patches on his knees, pulling tight the sleeves of his corduroy coat, and then adjusted his glasses. Benny continued, and Genevieve refocused her attention on him. “As a matter of fact,” he said, moving a finger between Hank and himself, “Hank and I don’t even think there is a fund-raiser.”

“Of course there’s a fund-raiser,” said Genevieve.

Hank elaborated. There could very well be a fund-raiser. We just didn’t think Lynn had donated our time to it. We didn’t think there was a committee chair pestering her. In fact, crazy as it sounded, we thought there was no client at all — unless that client was Lynn Mason herself.

“Yeah, I totally don’t follow,” said Genevieve, shaking her head at Hank.

Dan Wisdom showed up, taking one step inside the office to stand flush against the door, his hand on the doorknob. Hank explained that “the client” had chosen to move away from the fund-raiser ad, with its specific purpose and call to action, toward a nebulous public service announcement intended to make the cancer patient laugh for some vague reason that had nothing to do with raising money or finding a cure.

“Laughter,” said Hank. “One thing Lynn might be in short supply of right now.”

“So you’re saying,” said Genevieve, smiling mockingly at Hank, “that she made the whole thing up just so she could get a laugh?”

“That’s exactly what we’re saying,” said Karen Woo, moving from the doorway to stand directly in front of Genevieve’s cheap silver bookshelf. “Which is why nobody can find anything on the Web for the ‘Alliance Against Breast Cancer.’ You have to admit, Genevieve. It’s a little weird that nobody’s ever heard of this so-called Alliance. I mean, what kind of alliance is that?”

“I don’t care,” said Genevieve. “This just doesn’t sound like something Lynn would do.”

“Maybe she did it to keep us busy, too,” said Dan Wisdom. “It’s not like we had anything else going on.”

“Don’t you think Lynn would do that?” Amber asked her. “Keep us preoccupied during the downtime, to protect her team?”

“So which is it, then? Did she do it for herself, or did she do it for us?”

We debated which was the most likely answer.

“You guys gotta get your stories straight,” said Genevieve.

Even Carl Garbedian showed up. Here was an amazing turn of events. First running after Benny, and now this. He stood next to Dan Wisdom in the doorway. “I’ll tell you what I think,” he said. He wanted to claim that Lynn had made up the assignment because Lynn’s life was so much about marketing, the only way she could come to terms with her diagnosis was to see it presented to her in an ad. In a time of personal upheaval she fell back on the familiar language of advertising. She had to have it sold to her.

We immediately tried to distance ourselves from that theory. You steal prescription drugs from Janine Gorjanc and almost die of toxic poisoning, and six months into your recovery you’re an expert on the DSM-IV? Not likely. Carl’s psychologizing dampened the credibility of the argument we were trying to make — though Genevieve didn’t know yet about any argument.

Marcia, with her smart new bob, slid between Carl and Dan in the doorway. “What’s going on?” she asked, looking around.

We told her we were trying to convince Genevieve to talk to Joe.

“Talk to Joe?” Genevieve replied, suddenly aware that we weren’t there just to shoot the shit. “What am I talking to Joe about?”

Everyone knew that Lynn and Joe were tight. We saw them talking at night on our way out — the door cracked, one leaning into the other across the desk. She told him about client problems and whatnot and he expressed to her his impressions of us. It didn’t go in Joe’s favor to be seen in there like that because it was widely believed that he exerted influence on who walked Spanish and who didn’t. But that wasn’t the point right now; the point was, if any of us had any sway with Lynn Mason, it was Joe Pope. If anyone was going to confront her with what we suspected, if someone was going to help her, it would have to be Joe.

“And what do I have to do with that?” asked Genevieve.

If any of us had any sway with Joe Pope, it was Genevieve.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Nuh-uh.” She shook her head and set her pop down on the desk and said, “No way. This entire conversation is ridiculous.”

“Genevieve,” said Amber. “She might be dying.”

IT DIDN’T TAKE HER long to come around. After Karen’s phone call the evidence was on our side, the argument was too compelling, and Genevieve was too compassionate. If Lynn was really sick, Genevieve didn’t have it in her to sit back and do nothing. She talked it over some more with Marcia; she went back to Amber; she went in to Benny’s. By eleven that morning she was as convinced as the rest of us that the risk of doing nothing outweighed the risk of being wrong, and when she went in search of Joe twenty minutes later, she had the conviction of the newly converted, which wouldn’t last forever, but would for the moment brook no discouragement or allow for second-guessing. She approached him in the cafeteria on fifty-nine, where he was dropping coins into a vending machine.

Seven tables and three vending machines under a dismal light — that was our cafeteria. We’d call it a break room but “break room” might imply something to look forward to. On our rare trips to the cafeteria, we got what we needed from the vending machines and then we got the hell out. Eating there was never an option because the lights, the chairs — it was as depressing as a hospital waiting room, but absent any magazines or lifesaving devices. No one ever took comfort in the cafeteria. The perfect place to await your self-help group’s arrival — that was the kindest description we could give to it.

And so the deterrents to congregation guaranteed them a level of privacy. He opened his pop at one of the tables and she told him what she knew. He listened, and when she made her request, he declined. They talked about it awhile longer and he declined again. They got up from the table and he placed his empty can in the recycle bin just as the Bible group folks, carrying their floppy, shiny-edged books, began to shuffle in for their Thursday lunch.

We wanted to know from Genevieve his reasons for declining to get involved. “He said it was none of his business,” she told us. But why wouldn’t he want to help her? we asked. If she was unwell, and terrified? Karen’s phone call was very compelling evidence that something was not right. Was he heartless? Did he not see a distinction between sticking your nose in where it didn’t belong, and answering a cry for help? “I don’t think he sees it quite like that,” she replied. Well, then, how does he see it? “Differently,” she said.

Twenty minutes after their talk in the cafeteria, he was seen entering Genevieve’s office. She set her pencil down and took off her glasses, which she used only when looking at the computer. He shut the door. He moved inside and sat down. He scooted the chair forward and placed his arms on her desk. He looked at her from under his thick brows and said, “Look, it’s not because it’s none of my business. It isn’t, but if I knew for a fact that she needed help —”

“You would do it.”

“Yes,” he said. “I would help. I just can’t say I’m convinced she’s sick. I will admit,” he added, “that it was weird that she said she would be out the entire week, and then she showed up and never explained why. And she’s been preoccupied, no doubt about it. But okay, so what? That means she has cancer? Maybe she’s just worried about winning the new business.”

Genevieve stopped biting her pinkie nail. “Or maybe she’s really sick.”

“And you want me to be the one to go in and ask her which it is.”

“Hard to think of anyone better.”

“Why? This, by the way, is not the reason I refuse, either,” he said, “but try to see it from my perspective. I’m a man. Women’s issues — not something Lynn and I talk much about. But I’m supposed to go in there and talk to her about an incredibly personal matter. Whereas,” he said, gesturing as if to present Genevieve to herself, “you are a woman — much more suited to the topic. But you’re asking me to be the one.”

“Joe, I wasn’t asking you to go in there alone,” she said. She lifted herself up using the armrests of her chair, crossed her legs, and sat back down again Indian-style. “I’ll be with you.”

“So why do you need me in there at all?”

“I need you. .” she said. She bit her nail again while thinking and then said, “I don’t need you, to be honest. I’ll go in there on my own, if I have to. I’d like you in there because I think you can make the difference. Everyone knows Lynn’s opinion of you.”

He was skeptical. “What does everyone think they know about Lynn’s opinion of me?”

“That she respects you,” she said. “That you’re a voice of reason. That she listens to your suggestions and delegates to you and even defers to you. She doesn’t do that with the rest of us.”

“I think,” said Joe, “that what most of them see is Lynn and me talking, they see me in her office at night and they think whatever it is they want to think.”

“Well,” she said, “what should they think? Don’t you talk privately with her?”

“But about what, Genevieve? It isn’t. . is Larry screwing Amber? It’s not what pathetic thing did Carl do today. We’re not talking personal matters, we’re discussing business. We’re talking about ways to keep this place from going under.”

She left it at that. He had said no. Not out of any lack of sympathy, but for his own perhaps valid reasons, and better to stay friends than to push too hard. And besides, she was startled to hear him say so baldly, We’re trying to keep this place from going under. Such an admission momentarily distracted her from the question of Lynn’s health. When it got around, it distracted us, too.

But the first thing he did when he got back to his desk was call Genevieve on the phone.

“So if it’s so important to them,” he said, “if they’re so concerned, why don’t they go in and talk to her? What’s stopping them?”

“She’s an intimidating person.”

“So they’re cowards.”

“That’s a little harsh,” she said. “Haven’t you ever been intimidated?”

“Of course,” he said. “But if I feel strongly about something, I go in with my knees knocking and try to get the job done.”

“And that’s why you are where you are,” she said, “and they are where they are. That’s the difference between you and them, Joe.”

He hung up the phone, no change in his decision. Within fifteen minutes he knocked again and shut the door and sat down. His seat was practically still warm from their earlier conversation. “So because Karen Woo makes a telephone call, Lynn has cancer?” he said. “Do you know who we’re talking about here? These people get things very, very wrong, Genevieve. It’s the same group that’s absolutely convinced that Tom Mota’s coming back here to blow everyone to pieces.”

“Hold on,” she said. “That’s unfair. There are only a few people who actually believe that. And then maybe just Amber. Most of them don’t think that.”

“But they sure do talk about it. And talk, and talk, and talk. But okay, forget that. One time, I overheard Jim Jackers saying that he believes Freemasons rule the world. Jim Jackers doesn’t even know what a Freemason is.”

“Jim Jackers is only one of many,” she said.

“I listened to Karen Woo give an explanation of photosynthesis once,” he said. “God only knows why they were discussing photosynthesis. They hung on her every word, like she was a PBS special. Her explanation didn’t even involve sunlight. These people will believe anything. They will say anything.”

“Joe —”

“Genevieve, you know the way things work here. One person says something at lunch, and next you know they’re all walking into Lynn’s office as one big mob to carry her over to the hospital for a disease she might not have. These people — you can’t trust anything they say.”

“I had no idea you were such a cynic, Joe.”

“No,” he said, “it’s not cynicism.” He leaned back in his chair. “Trust me. Not just yet it’s not.”

He left, and that really should have been the end of it. But as she sat trying to concentrate on her work, bits and pieces of their conversation kept nagging at her, objections she had been too slow to consider came to her suddenly, subtleties she had let pass now demanded she speak for them.

She found him on the phone. She waited for him to get off without taking a seat. “‘These people,’” she said, when his call ended. “You kept saying that. You said it several times — ‘these people.’ I want to know what you meant by it.”

“What do you mean,” he said, “what did I mean by it?”

“When somebody says ‘these people,’” she said, “you can hear it, can’t you, Joe? A little condescension? I’m just wondering what sort of opinion you have of the people who work for you.”

He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands together behind the back of his head. “They don’t work for me,” he said. “They work for Lynn.”

“Oh, you know what I mean,” she said.

“Genevieve, I’m not really their boss. I’m not Lynn. But I’m not really one of them, either. I’m caught somewhere between being a partner, and being the guy in the cubicle, and they know that, so they come to me for certain things if it’s in their interest, but on the other hand, if they don’t like something, I’m usually the one they blame.”

“And for that,” said Genevieve, and she began to count off on her fingers, “you have a better title than the rest of us, you make more money, and you have a lot more job security.”

She had yet to sit down. Neither of them spoke. You didn’t talk about money or job security during a time of layoffs, not in the tone she had taken, and not when you were friends. The silence extended into awkward territory.

“You’re right,” he said at last. He let his hands fall from his head to the padded armrests of his chair. “I have advantages others don’t, and I shouldn’t complain about the price I might have to pay for those advantages. I’m sorry if I came across as some kind of martyr or something.”

“And I wasn’t trying to be snide just then,” she said, finally sitting down, reaching out to touch the edge of his desk as if it were a surrogate for his hand. “You do get mistreated here. I don’t blame you if you’re frustrated. But you kept saying ‘these people,’” she said, “lumping everyone together, and that didn’t sound fair to me, Joe. Because some of them happen to be good people.”

“I agree,” he said.

“But then you lump them all together as ‘these people’ who will ‘say anything’ and ‘believe anything,’ and it just makes you sound like an elitist.”

Which was the criticism we made of Joe most often — that he was aloof, that he held himself apart, that he held himself above. More than the juvenile speculation over his sexual orientation, more than the exaggerated claim of his social awkwardness, it was his elitism we kept coming back to time and again, like the stereotype that must have some truth to it if it gains such traction. “An elitist,” he said, as if hearing the word for the first time.

“I’m not saying you are one,” she said. “I’m just saying that I’m one of ‘those people’ this time, because I happen to think they’re right — I think something’s wrong with her. So when you lump me in with a guy who believes Freemasons rule the world — which I’m not sure he actually does, by the way. I think he might just think he’s being funny. Jim’s very desperate to be funny. He’s very desperate to be liked. But, anyway, you can’t dismiss all of us just because of Jim Jackers.”

He looked at her. He swiveled almost imperceptibly in his chair. “An elitist,” he said again — not defensively, but with a tone of curiosity, as if Genevieve had just introduced him to a new word. “What is an elitist?” he asked.

The guilelessness of the question caught her off-guard, as if a child had asked it, and it was her duty to explain. “Well,” she said, “I don’t know the dictionary definition, but I would define it as someone who thought of himself as better, or superior, to other people — someone who looked down on them and maybe deep down didn’t like them all that much.”

“Then I’m not an elitist,” he replied quickly. “I like people a lot.”

“I know you do — which is why I like you,” she said. “And it’s me asking you to talk to her. Not Jim Jackers. Not Karen Woo, or Amber, or Marcia. Me. Because I’m convinced there’s something wrong and that she might be scared and she might need help.”

She hung forward, waiting for a reply. His eyes never wavered from hers, her incredible blue eyes, persuasive just by their sheer force of clarity and beauty. He merely said, “Let me think it over.”

He was standing in her doorway ten minutes later. “Want to get some lunch?” he asked.

It was a cool day for late May, with a crisp lake breeze. Postage-stamp gardens lined Michigan Avenue all the way to the Water Tower. Red and yellow tulips were hanging on in the last days of spring. The sky was bright but the sun had peaked — it was just past one. They headed north, moving in and out of the city’s large swaths of sunlight and shade created by the tall buildings and the streets that ran between them. They stopped for sandwiches on the way. They sometimes had lunch together on the benches in the courtyard of the Water Tower where the pigeons pecked at the ground and the man in gold paint stood on a milk crate still as a statue in hope of donations, and the tourists shopping at the department stores along the Magnificent Mile stopped to consult guidebooks or take pictures. They had eaten there so often, apparently, that they didn’t need to ask each other where they were headed, which revealed a familiarity between them that was frankly a little surprising.

He was accustomed to the men catching sight of her and staring as she walked past. She was magnetic even in blue jeans and a simple cotton brown sweater, walking with her hands tucked deep into her back pockets. She would remove a hand from time to time to resettle a wind-whipped strand of hair.

They sat at one of the benches and ate their sandwiches. Once they were finished and he had returned from the trash bin, he said, “I looked the word elitist up in the dictionary. Do you think I’m a dork or what?”

“You’re a copywriter,” she said. “All copywriters are dorks.”

“‘Resembling someone with the belief —’. . how did it go?” he asked himself.

“You really looked it up?”

“‘. . the belief of being a part of a superior or privileged group —’. . something like that. ‘Part of a superior or privileged group’ — I know that’s right.”

“You really looked it up,” she said. She was turned to him with her legs crossed, one hand holding her hair flat while her elbow rested on her knee. The gold tips of her hair wavered in the wind.

“Well, first you said you thought they had made me into a cynic,” he said. “But I’m not a cynic, and I can prove it. I came back to your office, remember? Twice. I came back to argue it. I was a skeptic — there’s a big difference between that and a cynic. And the difference,” he said, “was you. If it was just them saying she had cancer, I’d be a cynic, you bet. But because you were saying it, too, I was willing to give it some credit. But you have to admit that most of what they say is bullshit, which I try to avoid. And because I avoid it, people think I’m an elitist. I personally never gave any credence to that, but when you said it, I had to wonder. But your definition didn’t sound right to me — that an elitist was somebody who probably didn’t like other people. That’s a misanthrope,” he said.

“So you looked it up.”

“Yes, and I’m happy to report back that I’m not an elitist.”

“It really bothered you.”

“It did,” he said.

“Just to clarify,” she said. “I never said you were an elitist. Just that you sounded like one.”

“Okay, but listen. I’m not an elitist by the definition I just gave you, either, Genevieve, the dictionary one, because I’m not a part of the group. I refuse to be a part of any group.”

“Everybody’s a part of a group,” she said.

“In the group photo, maybe. In the Directory of Services. But not in spirit.”

“So what does that make you?” she asked. “A loner?”

“That sounds like somebody wandering at night down a highway.”

“So you’re not a loner. You’re not an elitist, you’re not a cynic. What’s left, Joe? You’re a saint.”

“Yes, a saint,” he said. “I’m a saint. No, there is no word for it. Okay, listen,” he said, straightening on the bench and looking away from her. “So I have a story for you.”

She took the lid off her fountain drink and pulled out an ice cube. She put it in her mouth, fastened the lid back on, and, shivering, resumed holding her hair against the wind.

“How can you eat that?” he asked. “Aren’t you cold?”

She rattled the cube around in her mouth. “Tell me your story.”

He paused, looking down at the pigeons pecking nearby, and at people walking past. There was an art exhibit within the Water Tower and groups of two and three kept passing in and out. “So I started running with this clique in high school,” he began. He had turned away again and wasn’t looking at her while he spoke. “I found myself doing a lot of stupid shit. Going along with the flow, you know. I smoked a lot of pot with people who were. . Christ, they were all fucked up. Did you know I went to high school in Downers Grove?”

“I thought you were from Maine,” she said.

“We lived in Maine until my dad got laid off. Then we moved here. I didn’t want to move. Who wants to move when you’re just about to start high school? Starting over again with new people, it sucked. The first couple of years sucked. But by the time I was a junior I had made some friends. Poor fuckers from bad homes. It was actually a great year. More fun than I’d had as a freshman for sure. So the year goes by, school’s about to let out for the summer, and me and my friends are going to kick the shit out of this kid because he’s been calling up this girl who goes out with a friend of ours. Calling her up to ask her out, and bad-mouthing my friend while he’s at it. Bad-mouthing his parents, too, because these people. .” He trailed off and shook his head. “This friend of ours, his parents were serious drunks. All I remember is going over to his house and all the dogs everywhere, and bottles of whiskey stacked along one wall in the kitchen. Dog shit just lying around the house and nobody ever picked it up. Anyway, it got back to my friend that his parents were being bad-mouthed, and naturally we decided that this little shit had to get his ass kicked. The shit’s name was Henry. Henry Jenkins. Henry Jenkins of Downers Grove North. He had been a friend of ours for like a month, until he annoyed somebody and we got rid of him. Henry was a scrawny little dude, almost looked stunted, like he never got any bigger than eighth grade, even though he was the same year as us. Anybody could kick the shit out of this kid. Our friend didn’t need our help. But we all agreed that because he bad-mouthed his parents and tried to steal his girl that we needed to get in on it, too.”

“Boys,” she said.

“No, I wouldn’t call us boys,” he said, shaking his head. “Some of those guys were already big pituitary dudes. Not boys. And I remember thinking, nobody needs anybody’s help kicking Henry’s ass. Henry could walk past a shoe store and be bruised for weeks. So the day it’s supposed to happen, after school, I have terrible butterflies in my stomach, because I’m nervous — was I really going to do this thing? There are six of us, right, six — and then little scrawny Henry. It’s not my fight. I know I should step away. But even that isn’t enough — that’s just cowardly. What I really need to do is object. To my friends. What, am I crazy, right? They’re my friends. You only have so many friends in high school, and I had gone a long time without any. You don’t object. You do what they do. So when I tell them it isn’t my fight —”

“So you did object?”

“Eventually. I said I wouldn’t do it, and even went so far as to say it wasn’t their fight, either. They looked at me like I was worse than Henry, because at least Henry wasn’t a friend. I was a friend. So they tell me, go home then, if that’s how it is with me. Leave, you pussy, go home. But I couldn’t leave. They were my friends. And I was scared for Henry, too, and I figured it would be better for him that I stay in case. . I don’t know what. If it got out of hand, there’d be somebody to step in and help him. So what do you think I ended up doing? I ended up watching while they held Henry down and took these garden hoses — we’d planned all this out, you know. We had wonderful imaginations. We had stolen some garden hoses from the neighborhood, and my friends wrapped Henry up in them real tight, using them like rope. And when his hands and legs were bound with garden hose — trust me, he couldn’t move. Then they stuffed his mouth with somebody’s shirt so nobody could hear him cry. He was squirming around on the lawn of his backyard, his eyes real big, you know, and everybody was laughing. They stood him up, and then they started kicking him. Kick, and he’d tip over. They’d stand him up again and — kick. He’d fall, but without his arms to catch him. They did that over and over again. Lift him up, kick him, watch him fall down. Lift him up, kick him over. Every time he hit with a thud. He was crying like hell. And I just watched. I couldn’t stop them, but I couldn’t leave, either, in case they wanted to do something like toss rocks on his head, which they debated for a while. But they didn’t do that. Eventually they left him for his parents to find in the backyard — we left him, I mean. I ran away with everybody else. And when the police came to my door and showed my parents the Polaroids of Henry’s bruises, there was no way I could say, Oh, but I wasn’t really a part of that, I was just watching, or, I was really there just to protect Henry. Because that was as much of a lie as it was the truth, and for my participation I was sent to juvenile court, and I spent my last year in high school at one miserable fucking place.”

“You never told me this,” she said.

“I never tell anybody,” he said. “And not because I’m ashamed. I am ashamed, trust me. But that’s not why I never tell it. It’s over, it’s done, it’s history. I spent a year in hell, and then I went to college. I never joined a fraternity. I didn’t want a thing to do with fraternities. But I’ll tell you what else I never did. I never joined that loose association of counterfraternities, either. That was every bit as much of a club. I never bad-mouthed the frat boys because I knew guys in fraternities and I liked those guys, individually, some of them I liked very well, and if I was ever tempted to bad-mouth them, I could feel it coming over me again. Joining the club, losing control. Losing my convictions. That’s what I’m guilty of, Genevieve. Believing I’m better than the group. No better than anyone individually. Worse, because I stood by and watched Henry get wrapped up in garden hose and kicked over. There is no word for me. Someone better, smarter, more humane than any group. The opposite of an elitist, in a way. But that’s not to say,” he added, “that I’m not good and fucked up. And full of shame.”

GOOD THING WE NEVER invited Joe Pope to join the agency softball team. Didn’t like groups — well, what did he think he was doing working at an advertising agency? We had news for him. He was one of us whether he liked it or not. He came in at the same time every morning, he was expected at the same meetings, he had the same deadlines as the rest of us. And what an odd profession for him, advertising, where the whole point was to seduce a better portion of the people into buying your product, wearing your brand, driving your car, joining your group. Talk about a guy who just didn’t get it.

We took it personally, his reluctance to speak on our behalf. That old joke by Groucho Marx had been inverted: he’d never want to belong to a club that would have us as members. Well, if that wasn’t arrogance, if that wasn’t elitism, we didn’t know what was. And what did that attitude leave him with? Probably a very boring existence. He could attend civilized concert recitals though never himself join a quartet. He was allowed to read novels so long as he didn’t participate in any book club. He could walk his dog but his dog was forbidden from entering a dog park where he might be forced to commingle with other pet owners. He didn’t engage in political debate. That would demand he join in. No religion, either, for what was religion but one group seeking a richer dividend than the others? His was a joyless, lonely, principled life. Was it any wonder none of us ever asked him to lunch?

Well, there was nothing more we could do about it. Although we didn’t know what Genevieve was waiting for, since she had agreed to speak with Lynn without him, if it came to it. Really, we didn’t have much time. But when we pressed her to act, she said she was waiting. We asked her what for? “He’s still debating it,” she replied. We told her to give up. Joe Pope was a lost cause.

He came in and sat down across the desk from her. “They’re very convincing people,” he said finally. “That’s the whole problem, of course. They can convince you of anything.”

“Are you convinced?”

He took a moment to respond. “From the moment I came in here yesterday,” he said, “and said to you, what a screwy assignment — you remember? I was more or less convinced. It’s how convincing they are that gives me pause. Convinced and convincing,” he added. “They’re two different things.”

She waited, sensing a tip in the scales, not wanting to say anything for fear the least word might carry some counterweight.

“But then she might actually be sick,” he said.

“Yes.”

“And then I wouldn’t be doing it for them, would I?”

“No,” she said.

“My duty isn’t to them.”

“Not to them,” she said. “No.”

He bent forward, closed his eyes, and held his steepled hands at his forehead. He stayed in that position for a long time before looking up again.

“Well, then,” he said. “No time like the present.”

2

PROOF OF LIFE — THE STORY OF TOM MOTA’S CHAIR, PART III — THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SOCKET WRENCH AND AN ALLEN WRENCH — ON THE WAY TO THE LAKE — THE IDIOT — MARCIA HAS A PANG OF CONSCIENCE — THREE-FIFTEEN — THE TOY CHEESEBURGER — THE GRANDFATHER CLOCK — AN UNCOMFORTABLE DEVELOPMENT — THE REAL YOPANWOO INDIANS — AN UNINTENTIONAL INSULT — KAREN PASSES BENNY — JOE KEEPS AT IT — GENEVIEVE’S E-MAIL — HOW IT WORKS, HERE AND ELSEWHERE

FIFTY-NINE WAS A GHOST TOWN. We needed to gather up the payroll staff still occupying a quarter of that floor and find room for them among the rest of us and close down fifty-nine, seal it off like a contamination site. Odds were we were contractually bound to pay rent on that floor through the year, shelling out cash we didn’t have for real estate we didn’t need. But who knows — maybe we were keeping those abandoned cubicles and offices in hopes of a turnaround. It wasn’t always about ledger work at the corporate level. Sometimes, like with real people, it was about faith, hope, and delusion.

While Genevieve and Joe were debating approaching Lynn Mason about her missed appointment, Jim Jackers went down to fifty-nine to find the inspiration eluding him at his desk. Sometimes it was necessary to physically relocate if nothing was coming. Jim left everything behind, including the blank page that feared him, and went down to fifty-nine just to think. What was funny about cancer? What was funny about it?

In the anonymous cubicle where he ended up, the carpet was gray and the ceiling was white. The fabric walls were orange, and there was a desk with no chair. One edge of the desk was chipped, or whittled — it almost looked gnawed — revealing the cheap permaboard inside. Otherwise there was nothing else to it — and nothing to do but figure out how cancer was funny. The room hummed with a canny stillness, which should have aided his concentration, but instead distracted him. Maybe it was the sound of the overhead lights. It was as if the blank page had followed him and morphed through a miracle of physics into a pure sound. All fifty-nine was a blank page, separated by cubicle partitions. The floor’s lonesome eeriness surrounded him in its silence and blankness like an all-consuming void, and once he was sucked in, he would lose not only his job, but his mind as well. To distance himself from these bleak thoughts, he started to ruminate on more pleasant matters, like what he would have for lunch. He was pleased to find a Styrofoam coffee cup on the floor under the desk, a cigarette butt curled at the bottom like a dead tequila worm. Proof of life! Nothing funny coming to him, he shook the coffee cup and watched the butt bounce around until that activity brought out stale and unpleasant fumes, which reminded him of Old Brizz. Could it have been, he wondered, Brizz’s own snuffed cigarette? Had one winter day been simply too much for him, so that he snuck down to fifty-nine, where he enjoyed three or four illicit puffs in the climate-controlled comfort of the indoors? Jim thought how grand it would be if the butt was Brizz’s — a memento mori from a moment’s stolen pleasure, perhaps all that was necessary to validate an entire lifetime. But the find also got him thinking again: Brizz had died of cancer. How could anything be funny about dying a miserable death and leaving nothing behind but a cigarette butt? Not proof of life — proof of death. Jim was further afield than ever. Suddenly the silence on fifty-nine felt less like the blank page and more like the silence of catacombs. Each of the empty cubicles was a chamber waiting for its coffin.

A tinkling sound distracted him. What a great relief. He pricked up his ears. Silence. Enduring silence. Then — clink clink — clink. Clink. “Urfff,” someone said. Thank god — proof of life. He got up and entered the hallway. He looked in both directions, waiting. More silence. Then the dull sound of something heavy hitting carpet — thump. It seemed to come from further down — that honeycomb of cubicles over there, nearest the windows. Then, the cacophony of many tools being stirred about. That led him the rest of the way. He came to the doorway of a cubicle where he found Chris Yop on his knees taking a wrench to an upended chair.

When Yop looked up and saw Jim standing in the cubicle doorway, he said nothing. He simply went back to work. “Yop,” said Jim, “what’s that you’re doing down there?” Yop didn’t reply. The base of the chair consisted of six spokes, each of which ordinarily had a wheel attached to its end. The spokes were facing in Jim’s direction, and looked like the dangling legs of an upturned bug. Yop was kneeling at one side of the chair and removing the sixth and final wheel. Done with that, he placed the wheel in with the others. He had with him a large black suitcase — the kind one rolls through airports — which lay next to Reiser’s toolbox in the crowded little workstation. Everyone knew Reiser kept tools in his office, and Yop had evidently borrowed them. He had tucked his tie between the two middle buttons of his dress shirt, so it wouldn’t hang down and interfere. Jim said he looked like a copy-machine technician, but a confused one, operating on a chair. “Whose chair is that, Chris?” Jim asked. Again Yop didn’t reply.

We got this story from Marcia Dwyer, who heard it from Benny. When Jim first related it to Benny, inside Benny’s office, Benny asked him, “Weren’t you worried about being seen with him, doing what he was doing?” Predictably, Jim said he hadn’t even thought about it. “From the minute I saw him, I knew what he was up to,” he said to Benny, “but I didn’t think I’d get in trouble for it. Besides, it was something to watch. You ever seen a chair get taken apart like that?” At one point, after several minutes of continuous work, Yop stood and took his suit coat off, folding it neatly over a cube wall. Then he unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves and wiped his brow with the backs of his hairy wrists. “How come you’re so dressed up, Chris?” Jim asked him. Again, no reply. Not so much as a glance in Jim’s direction. Strange behavior coming from Chris Yop, who yammered on and on about whatever the fuck. It made standing there awkward for Jim. It occurred to him for the first time that the silence might be deliberate, that Yop was upset with him for some reason.

“What would he have to be upset with you for?” asked Benny. “You didn’t do anything to him.” “I didn’t think I had,” Jim said. “But I was standing in the doorway talking to the guy and he wasn’t answering. So I started wondering if I had pissed him off somehow.” Later, when Marcia related the story to us after hearing it from Benny, we thought that that was exactly how insecure Jim Jackers would react. There was Chris Yop, no longer an employee, told to leave the building two days ago under threat of arrest and currently destroying agency property, and still Jim wanted to be his friend.

He asked Yop if he had done something wrong. Yop didn’t even bother to look up from the chair. “You didn’t e-mail me about the changes to the project,” he finally replied. According to Jim, this was said as if Yop were Jim’s boss, and that serious consequences would follow from Jim’s oversight. At the same time, Yop sounded hurt. Jim had to remind himself that he hadn’t done anything wrong and had no reason to feel guilty. “Was I supposed to e-mail you?” he asked. “I asked somebody to,” said Yop. “Do you not remember me asking?” “You mean yesterday at the coffee bar?” “Nobody e-mailed me,” said Yop, who was now working a set of bolts connected to the base of the chair. “Which is okay,” he added. “I am not unaware, Jim, that I have been shitcanned. Everyone thinks I’m unaware of that — I am not unaware. I am not unaware that I’m an old man and that this is a young man’s game.” Jim told him he didn’t think forty-eight was so old, and that he’d probably have a new job in no time. Then he tried to explain to Yop that the change to the project was so bewildering — he was really struggling to arrive at even a single concept — that he wouldn’t have felt confident e-mailing anyone about it. “Hey, Jim,” said Yop, looking at Jim for the first time since he appeared in the doorway, and what Jim saw was the flushed, perspiring, dejected expression of someone trying to conceal the anger that made his voice quiver. “You don’t have to explain to me, okay? It would have been stupid of you to e-mail me. Any of you. You don’t think I know that? Hey,” he added, his hands shaking as he opened his arms wide, “I’m not stupid. I know I’ve been shitcanned. I know no one wants to be caught exchanging e-mails with me. I just didn’t expect to be treated the way I was treated yesterday at the coffee bar.”

Upon hearing that, Benny demanded to know, “How did we treat him yesterday at the coffee bar?” Jim said he couldn’t remember. When he related the story to Marcia, Benny asked her, “Do you remember treating him any particular way yesterday at the coffee bar?” Marcia stood in Benny’s doorway next to the skeleton, hands on her hips, wrists turned inward. “I think I called him insane,” she said.

Jim, standing in the cubicle doorway on fifty-nine, wanted to know from Yop how we had upset him yesterday at the coffee bar. Yop didn’t answer him directly. “I’m not getting paid for being here anymore, Jim,” he said, on his knees in his nice pleated dress slacks and working the wrench. “Do you understand what that means? I’m hanging around of my own free will. I’m here because I want to be here. You think I want to be here? No way I want to be here, Jim. But I hung around for a couple extra hours yesterday, waiting for an e-mail that never came. Not from you, not from Marcia, not from Amber — nobody. At least when I got shitcanned, Lynn Mason gave me severance, you know what I’m saying, Jim? At least the agency said, Chris Yop, we have a parting gift for you. You guys at the coffee bar? You couldn’t even send me an e-mail.”

Yop finished removing the last of the bolts, which allowed him to slide the wheel base off the hydraulic lift bar. He placed the base in the suitcase — now the chair looked like nothing more than a silver pole attached lollipop-style to a seat and backrest. “I heard you,” said Yop, out of the blue, on his knees and glowering at Jim. It startled Jim because he had been watching him remove the base of the chair, and next he knew Yop was pointing a screwdriver at him and staring angrily, and he hadn’t even seen him pick that screwdriver up. “Every one of you,” he added.

“You heard us what?” said Jim.

Yop refused to elaborate. He just replaced the screwdriver for a wrench and went back to the chair.

Marcia moved from the doorway into Benny’s office because the story just got interesting. She sat down across the desk from him. “What did he mean by that,” she asked, “‘I heard you’? That’s a weird thing to say, isn’t it?” “I asked Jim the same thing,” Benny said. “He had no idea what he meant. What could he have meant by it? What did we say that he might have overheard and took offense at?” “‘I heard you,’” said Marcia, sitting back in the chair to better puzzle it out. “‘Every one of you.’ What could that mean?” “Something about him crying, maybe, breaking down in front of Lynn?” “Maybe,” said Marcia.

It took Yop a total of about a half hour to get the chair down to its component parts. The only time he wasted was locating a tool and then making sure the size was right. After that it was just a matter of loosening and turning. “And nobody disturbed you that whole time?” Benny asked Jim. “It’s fifty-nine,” Jim stated plainly. “No one even walked by.” The payroll people and the bathrooms being on the other side of the floor, Benny didn’t doubt it. Yop went steadily and methodically at his work while Jim continued to look on, impressed by Yop’s command of tools and their function. “What’s that thing called,” Jim asked Benny, “where you have several pieces, all different sizes, and you attach them to the main tool depending on which size you need?” “You’re asking me?” said Benny. “I’m no expert with tools.” “I think it’s called an Allen wrench,” said Jim. When Benny told Marcia that nobody was sure what Yop was using to dismantle the chair, Marcia replied, “You guys don’t know what an Allen wrench is?” When Marcia told us that, we knew right away that Benny must have felt a real pang of masculine insufficiency for not knowing his tools in front of Marcia, who could probably take apart a motorcycle blindfolded for all the years she spent on the South Side with her four brothers. “They’re called sockets,” she said, “and that’s a socket wrench, not an Allen wrench. An Allen wrench removes an Allen screw, which has a hole in it that fits the wrench — oh, it’s hard to explain. Haven’t you ever put a table together? Or a bookshelf?” “Once, I did,” said Benny. “In college.”

Unlike Jim or Benny, Yop was very proficient. “Where did you learn to work with your hands?” Jim asked him. Yop wouldn’t say. The one thing he did do was start to whistle a little. Being a bad whistler he soon gave it up. “In all honesty,” he said to Jim, taking small steps on his knees to reposition himself with respect to the chair. “I’m glad nobody e-mailed me. I for one wouldn’t want to work on a team where the other team members don’t have any respect for me, Jim. That’s just me personally. But you, you do what you need to do. Hold this for me, will you?” Yop went into the toolbox and picked up what seemed to Jim like a random tool and held it out before him.

Benny wanted to know if he took it. “Yeah, I took it,” said Jim. “Jim!” cried Benny. “So what if it’s fifty-nine, man! If somebody had walked by and seen you holding a tool while Yop was taking that chair apart, you think they would have understood you were just holding a tool for him?” “I got distracted!” cried Jim. “I didn’t know why he was saying what he was saying. He said he wouldn’t want to work on a team where nobody had any respect for him, but that I needed to do what I needed to do. What did he mean by that, Benny? Do the other people on the team not have any respect for me? Is that what he was trying to tell me? I mean, I know Marcia doesn’t like me —”

Marcia bolted forward in the chair across from Benny. “He said that?” she asked with squeamish alarm. “He said he knows I don’t like him?”

“— but what about all the others?” asked Jim.

At last Yop had finished. He stood up and dusted off his pants. He put his suit coat back on. Then he bent down and placed the rest of the items inside the suitcase — all the nuts and bolts, the armrests, the levers, the lift bar, and the webbed seat. But he had underestimated the size of the backrest, and no matter how he turned it or how hard he pushed, it was always an inch or two too big, preventing him from zipping the luggage closed. “Fuck,” he said, looking up at Jim. So Jim carried it out for him wrapped in packing paper, which we kept in the mount room.

“Jim, what in the hell!” cried Benny. “Why would you help that guy out?”

“I felt bad for how he thought we had mistreated him at the coffee bar,” said Jim.

“Oh my god,” Marcia said to Benny. “I wish you wouldn’t have just told me that.”

Benny wanted to know why it bothered Marcia to hear of Jim’s misplaced goodwill toward Chris Yop. “Because I am so mean to that guy.” “To Yop?” “No,” she replied. “Well, yeah, to Yop, but to Jim especially. I am mean to everybody, Benny — but especially to Jim. And the guy — he just wants to be liked!” “You’re not so mean to him,” Benny tried to reassure her. “Not any meaner than anybody else.” “Yes, I am,” said Marcia. “I’m terrible.” She looked visibly upset. One hand was up by her furrowed brow, as if she were trying to cover her eyes and disappear from her shame. But, boy, thought Benny, did the new haircut make her look good.

“So tell me honestly, Benny, do they have any respect for me or not?” Jim had asked him.

“And how did you answer him?” Marcia wanted to know.

“I danced around it,” said Benny. “I didn’t exactly lie to him, but I didn’t exactly tell him the truth, either.” Marcia told Benny she just wanted him to move on and finish the rest of the story.

Yop walked out of the building rolling his black suitcase along the marble floor. In his suit and tie, he looked like any other businessman headed out to the airport. Nobody at the lobby desk confused him for Hawaiian-shirt-wearing Chris Yop from the creative department. His premeditated sprucing-up revealed a criminal canniness that frankly should have been a little alarming, but this was a more innocent time, and so we weren’t too bothered by it after it came to light. A little later, Jim walked out with the backrest wrapped in brown paper — just a man taking an oversized package to the post office. In fact, he had slapped an address label on it for the sake of appearance.

“Jim,” said Benny, shaking his head sadly.

They met in front of a corner convenience store and Jim followed Yop down to the lake. When the urge overtook Yop, which was often, he turned abruptly on the sidewalk and told Jim what was on his mind. “No more offending them,” he said, the first time he swung around, stopping Jim in his tracks. “Be sure to go back there and tell them that, Jim, that Chris Yop is no longer in the building to offend them with his presence. And I will never return. How pleased they’ll be, I’m sure. Karen Woo. And that fucking Marcia.”

“Why single me out?” asked Marcia. “What I ever do?”

“He’s obviously unhinged,” said Benny. “I wouldn’t take it personally.”

Given the chance, Jim would have responded by saying he didn’t think anybody was offended that Chris was still in the building, just a little unsure why, given that Lynn Mason had let him go two days earlier. But it was clear that Yop wasn’t soliciting replies. He turned quickly and walked on, leaving Jim to catch up. Holding the chair’s backrest before him prevented Jim from seeing the ground and he almost tripped over an irregularity in the sidewalk. The next time Yop turned, it was just as abruptly, and Jim recoiled a little. “Thank god, Jim, thank god for the love of a devoted woman.” Jim thought Yop might try to stab him in the eye with his pointing finger. “It’s the only thing that’s worth a damn. Without Terry,” he concluded, “this whole world would be for shit.”

He turned and marched on. The wheels of his suitcase drummed the sidewalk partitions at regular intervals. He turned a third time, but only to say, “Your so-called friends. What a joke.” Jim anticipated more, but Yop, smiling humorlessly and shaking his head slowly, said nothing. He paused long enough for Jim to reply — it almost seemed he wanted him to — but Jim was at a loss for words. When Yop turned back again he let out a smirking, hostile laugh. Two blocks from the lake, they were caught at a red light and had to stand next to each other as the traffic moved past. “Not even to catch up,” said Yop, turning to him. “You hear that? Be sure you tell them that. Not even to catch up.” “Catch up?” said Jim. “What do you mean, not even to catch up?” “Not that they would care if I keeled over tomorrow,” he added.

“Oh my god, so I tore up his resume and threw it in his face,” said Marcia. “It doesn’t mean I want the man to die.”

“I don’t know,” said Benny, “maybe we should have just e-mailed him.”

At that time of day, the promenade alongside Lake Michigan was fairly empty. Most people didn’t make it all the way down to the southern terminus anyway, where the land doglegged out into the water and the promenade ended at a little beach. Despite the lingering chill, there was plenty of sunlight, and in the distance to their right a few robust bathers were lending the lake its first signs of summer life. Otherwise, it was just Jim and Yop and the occasional elderly speed-walker. Yop brought the suitcase to rest just behind the breaker, unzipped it and took two of the chair wheels from inside, climbed over the breaker, and approached the water. Just as he wound back, a great May wind rose up. Yop flung the first of the wheels into Lake Michigan while his tie fluttered in the opposite direction. On his return to the suitcase the tie was still flung over one shoulder. “You guys think I wanted to cry?” he asked Jim. “I wasn’t crying for me,” he said. “I was crying for Terry. I was crying for Terry and me.” By that point, Jim knew not to respond. He watched as Yop tossed the remainder of the wheels and the armrests out into the water. The armrests floated, as did the webbed seat and backrest — which Yop tossed out Frisbee-style, brown paper and all — but the silver pole sank quickly. He stood over the water shaking the suitcase upside down. Every nut and bolt plopped down into the lake. Then he zipped up the suitcase and returned to where Jim had stood watching him, just on the other side of the breaker. He lifted the suitcase and climbed over the breaker one leg at a time and set the wheels of the suitcase back on the ground and began to walk away, but then stopped and turned back to address Jim. “I would thank you for your help, Jim,” he said, “but I’ve always considered you an idiot.”

Yop’s final remark to Jim Jackers sent Marcia over the edge. She burrowed into her seat, squirming herself into a ball of shame and regret, and cried, “Please tell me he did not!” She vowed never to be mean to Jim again. She vowed never to be mean to anyone again. “How could he say that to him?” she asked. “You said it to him just the other day,” said Benny. “But how could he say it and mean it?” she asked. Marcia was the rare one among us who used the occasion of other people’s cruelty to be reminded of her own, and to feel bad about both. She made a vow like the one she now made to Benny — never to be mean again — every two or three weeks, until something Jim said or did had her sniping again, telling him to shut up and leave her office. What was refreshing about Marcia was that she said these things to his face, but unlike Yop, they weren’t eternal damnations. They were just momentary expressions of her exasperation — things we wanted to say, but we lacked the courage — and they always resulted in mad fits of compunction.

“Jim didn’t seem all that upset about it, believe it or not,” Benny assured her. “He just wanted to know if I thought he was an idiot.”

“And you said no, right?” said Marcia. “Benny, tell me you didn’t dance around that one.”

“I told him of course he was an idiot,” Benny said. “I had to, Marcia. If I had told him he wasn’t an idiot, he would have known I thought he was one.”

“This place is so fucked up,” she said.

We were outraged for Jim, too. The poor guy had gone to great lengths to help Yop seek his revenge against the office coordinator and her system of serial numbers, and then he was left with an insult. We rallied to Jim’s side. We told him not to sweat that remark. Then we tried to understand what Yop could possibly have against us. Why was he directing all his outrage toward us, we asked Jim, when, having dismantled Tom Mota’s chair and having tossed it into the lake, the object of his bitterness was so obviously one specific person, i.e., the office coordinator? Jim didn’t know, except to say that Yop was hurt that we hadn’t e-mailed him with instructions about the changes to the project. But just what was he planning to do once he got those instructions? Salvage his job? We felt maligned.

“At least I understand Tom Mota,” Marcia told Benny. “Tom’s just full of frustration for how his life turned out. But Chris Yop? Chris Yop I just don’t get.”

In the end we had to understand that of course Yop would hate us. We were still employed, and he wasn’t. He was working on out-of-date fund-raiser ads while we knew the project had changed. We had been together at the coffee bar, and he was on the outs.

“But Chris Yop wasn’t what I came in here for, was it?” said Marcia.

“I don’t think so,” said Benny.

“What was it?” she asked herself. “Why’d I stop by?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, intrigued, hopeful.

“Oh my god,” she said out of the blue. “Can you believe it’s only three-fifteen?”

SOME DAYS FELT LONGER than other days. Some days felt like two whole days. Unfortunately those days were never weekend days. Our Saturdays and Sundays passed in half the time of a normal workday. In other words, some weeks it felt like we worked ten straight days and had only one day off. We could hardly complain. Time was being added to our lives. But then it wasn’t easy to rejoice, exactly, realizing that time just wasn’t moving fast enough. We had any number of clocks surrounding us, and every one of them at one time or another exhibited a lively sense of humor. We found ourselves wanting to hurry time along, which was not in the long run good for our health. Everybody was trapped in this contradiction but nobody ever dared to articulate it. They just said, “Can you believe it’s only three-fifteen?”

“Can you believe it’s only three-fifteen?” Amber asked Larry Novotny. You bet Larry could believe it was three-fifteen. Larry could believe it was eleven-fifty-nine and the clock was about to strike midnight and the governor had yet to call. Time was seriously running out for Larry. Was she or was she not going to have the abortion? It wasn’t something he could ask every fifteen minutes, certainly not every five minutes, though time moved for him now in five-minute intervals, at the end of which he debated asking her once again if she was going to do it or what. He usually decided against asking her again, having asked only twelve five-minute intervals ago, which, before all this started, was only an hour, but which now felt more like twelve or even fourteen hours. Amber had made it clear that she did not want to be asked every hour if she was going to have an abortion.

“Are they still down there?” she asked Larry. “What do you think they’re doing down there?”

Larry got up and peeked his head down the hall to Lynn Mason’s office where the door remained closed. They had seen Genevieve and Joe enter ten minutes ago, or nearly two hours ago, according to Larry’s new clock, and during those ten minutes Larry had debated seriously with himself, twice, whether or not to bring the matter up again with Amber. On his return he slapped his cap on his jeans three times and then screwed it on his head, nodding in the affirmative. They were still down there.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” she asked.

Larry thought they were probably talking about whether or not Amber should have the abortion. They were probably discussing the misfortune Larry was facing, and how little desired it was that he tell his wife not only that he was having an affair but that the woman was pregnant and intended to keep the baby. There was no way to put a good spin on that, no way of saying cheerfully, “Charlie’s going to have a half brother!”

“How long have they been in there?” asked Amber. “Ten minutes? It feels more like twenty.”

“It feels more like two hours,” said Larry.

It was disappointing and a little irritating that Amber was fixated on a crisis unraveling in some other office when the more significant crisis was taking place right here. “Have you, uh. .” he began, “thought any more about, uh —”

She had been working the little white lever on a windup toy. It was a kid’s toy from a Happy Meal, a cheeseburger with a sesame seed bun and all the fixings painted on. It also had a pair of enormous white feet. At last the toy could be wound no further and she leaned over in her chair and set the cheeseburger down on the carpeting. Some slight imperfection in the feet made it go in a gradual circle, which it did over and over again until finally it died and the room went silent again.

When she looked him in the eye at last he noticed her eyes had reddened. Oh, no, he thought. Not this again. He removed his cap once more and smoothed back his hair. Then he put the cap back on.

“I go back and forth,” she said.

JIM JACKERS WAS HARD at work on the pro bono ads and had been working on them steadily for a few hours, since his return from helping Chris Yop throw his chair into Lake Michigan. Looking up from the blank page to the blinking clock, he discovered it was only three-fifteen. He decided that today was perhaps the longest day of his life. Not only had he been called an idiot to his face, but he could do nothing to counter that opinion, because he couldn’t come up with even a single funny thing to say about breast cancer.

“WHAT TIME IS IT, JOE?” asked Lynn Mason.

Joe glanced down at his watch. “Three-fifteen,” he answered.

She reached up to set the hands of a grandfather clock. It was standing against the far wall, to the left of the white leather sofa, and it was a testament to how cluttered that office had been before she and the office coordinator cleared everything away that none of us had any memory of a grandfather clock. It had blended into the background along with everything else, or had perhaps been obscured by lawyers’ boxes full of old files. Or perhaps we were just not very perceptive people. But now that the layers of old magazines, dead files, and the like had been removed, it was possible to discern an attempt to make her office look like a proper one. The desk was located farthest from the door, so that when she sat at it, she could see everything before her — the door itself, the glass-top table to the left, the bookshelves and antique armchair against the right wall, and the sofa and the grandfather clock looking back at her from the far wall.

Ten minutes earlier, Genevieve and Joe’s knock had interrupted her at her cleaning. Most of the work had been done the day before, but that afternoon she had been called away by meetings with the other partners to discuss strategy for the two upcoming new business pitches. Now she was putting the final touches on what was essentially a brand-new office. She answered the knock on the door by calling out and Joe put his head in. “I’m here with Genevieve,” he said. “Do you have a minute?” She motioned them inside with a quick whip of a dirty rag. When Genevieve walked in behind Joe, she said, “Hi, Lynn.” “Come in,” said Lynn, “have a seat.” How odd to see Lynn Mason with a can of polish and a rag, bending in her skirt and buffing the wood to the side of her desk. They did as they were told and sat down in the twin chairs placed directly in front of her desk. Immediately they had to turn to their left as she moved on to polish the bookshelves and then the wood inlays on her antique armchair. While she worked, she told Joe that she had asked Mike Boroshansky to dedicate one of his guys full-time to their five floors.

“A security guy?” said Joe. “How come?”

“Because we just can’t take any chances,” she replied.

Genevieve thought she dusted the way she did everything else, with great gusto and command. It was the first time she had ever been intimidated by someone else’s dusting. She sat quietly.

“But Lynn,” he said, “there are only one or two people who genuinely believe he poses a threat. Most of it is just idle chatter.”

“It’s not just me, Joe. It’s the other partners,” she said.

She moved from the armchair over to the leather sofa behind them and began to wipe that down as well. Joe twisted in the chair to keep her in his sights and talked to her over the backrest. Genevieve chose to keep staring straight ahead.

“These recent e-mails to Benny and Jim,” Lynn was saying, “the way he left this place, his behavior toward his wife — the man destroyed all his belongings with a baseball bat. Now, I’m not saying I definitely think he’s on his way back here,” she said, looking at Joe during a brief interlude in her dusting, “but when he’s swept up in something, he doesn’t act right, not like a normal person, and I don’t think we can take the chance.”

She returned her attention to the sofa. “But how is one guy from security going to stop him if he does come back?” asked Joe. Genevieve was surprised by his contrariness, and had new insight into the openness of dialogue that passed between them when the rest of the team was out of the room.

But that wasn’t the real news. The real news was that Lynn Mason now entertained the notion of Tom Mota planning a return. That point of view had had only one serious spokesperson until then — Amber Ludwig, who worried about everything. Security had posted his picture at the lobby desk, but they were screwball comedies down there. Lynn Mason’s concern legitimized the idea. That was a new and uncomfortable development.

“We’re working on getting an order keeping him from the premises,” she said, “but in the meantime, Mike’s giving us a guy, and we’re putting him outside your office.”

“Why my office?” Joe asked.

“Because your office looks directly onto the elevators, and if he comes back here, this is the floor I think he’d visit first, and to be honest with you, Joe, I think the biggest grudge he has might be against you. With maybe me being the exception.”

“I disagree,” said Joe. “It’s true he didn’t care for me in the beginning, but by the time he left, for whatever reason, I think I’d earned his respect. And to be honest with you, Lynn, I think we’re blowing this whole thing way out of proportion.”

“Well,” she said, with her back to him. “There’s still going to be a man outside your office.”

Through with her cleaning at last, she opened the door to the grandfather clock. When Joe informed her of the time, she set the hands accordingly and wound the clock with a key. She set the brass pendulum in motion and then shut the door and watched it swing. In the intervening silence Genevieve glanced back to see what she was doing, found her standing before the clock, and once again realized how small she was in real life. Joe could probably lift her off the ground. He was no muscleman but he was no slouch, either, and he could probably take her by her two arms and lift her, maybe all the way until his own arms were extended, and at the very thought of Joe holding Lynn Mason up in the air like that, like a child, and with a little extra effort, even spinning her around, Genevieve had to choke back the laughter rising in her throat, because Lynn was just then coming around to her desk and pulling her chair out to have a seat. All at once she loomed larger and more intimidating than ever before.

“Now,” she said, “what did you want to talk about?”

“NOW I REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS!” cried Marcia.

It had finally come to her. She had heard Benny was selling the totem pole and she wanted to stop him. “Who told you I was doing that?” he asked. It was making the rounds — the rise in rental rates and his reluctance to pay the difference. “But who ever said I was selling it?” he asked. “Don’t do it,” Marcia pleaded. “Please, Benny. Do you want to see them win?” “Who’s ‘they’?” he asked cautiously. “Every single one of those motherfuckers,” she replied. She had momentarily forgotten her vow never to be mean again. “If you sell it, Benny, you will be handing a victory to every ignorant motherfucker on the payroll. You don’t want to do that, Benny, you don’t. And I don’t want to see it happen.” “What I want to do,” he said with sincerity, “is I want to stop giving three hundred bucks a month that I don’t have to that storage place — that’s what I really want.” “I’ll pay the difference,” she said. “You’ll do what?” “The difference between what you’re paying right now and the rise in rates,” she said. “What is it? I’ll pay it. I’ll write you a check every month.” “Why would you do that?” he asked.

Part of it, she explained, was to help rectify every despicable, hateful thing she had done since that happy day she had been hired. It was an effort to restore the balance, to reclaim her right to raise her head and stand up proudly. Benny did not need reminding that Marcia was a dabbler in Asian religions. In fact he had been reading up on them. He had been studying the Four Sights, the Eightfold Path, and the Ten Perfections in the hope that one of them might come up in conversation. He was slipping allusions to the Bo tree into many of the stories he told. Marcia hadn’t responded to any of them as he had hoped she would, either because she wasn’t paying attention, or because the allusions meant nothing to her. We said nothing because Benny was Jewish, and we assumed he, as a Jew, knew more about religion than the rest of us. But in fact he had mistakenly been studying Buddhism, while Marcia considered herself more of a student of the Hindu religion. The only thing he got right was a copy of the Bhagavad Gita sitting on his desk, on top of some papers, with the spine facing conspicuously in her direction.

“So let me see if I get it,” he said. “You want to help your karma.”

“Yes,” she said.

“From good must come good,” he said, “and from evil, evil. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes!” she cried. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. How’d you even know that?”

“I’ve been reading about it lately,” he said.

But it was not as simple as cutting him a check, she explained to the novice. Karma did not take if an offer was made only in the anticipation of a return. A genuine and pure impulse had to precede the selfless act. “So what’s your impulse?” he asked. “Not to see those bastards win,” she replied simply. Benny said he was just hazarding a guess here, but that didn’t sound very pure to him. Marcia reminded him of the Yopanwoo Indians. The Yopanwoo Indians had made a mockery of every real Native American tribe ever to suffer an injustice. The practical joking had turned a tragedy into a farce. She promised Benny it was as pure as they came. “I’m from Bridgeport, I never met an Indian in my life,” she said. “But I was still offended. And I thought what you were doing with it — with Brizz’s totem pole, I mean. To be honest, I didn’t know what you were doing with it, but I thought whatever it was was. . was —” “Weird?” he said. “No,” she said, shaking her head and its all-too-lovely new contoured hair. “No, not weird. Noble.” “Noble?” he said. “You thought it was noble?” He wondered briefly where she had been with this talk of nobility when they were hooting at him from the hallway and bloodying that skinned toupee on his desk — though he said nothing about that and took the compliment with pleasure. Her good opinion was well worth three-nineteen a month — though that wasn’t why he had done it. “So to stick up for the Indians,” she said, “and to see that those bastards don’t win, and to help you do whatever it is you think you need to do with Old Brizz’s totem pole, you tell me the difference and I’ll write you a check.” There was a fourth reason, too, of course, which was that it might help Marcia improve her karma, but she left that off the litany.

“Marcia,” he said, “that won’t be necessary.”

“I know it’s not necessary,” she said. “I want to do it.”

“I’m afraid I’ve already gotten rid of it,” he said.

The appraiser who had come out to the U-Stor-It had informed Benny not only of the totem pole’s market value but also a thing or two of its origins. He believed it to be the work of a tribe whose descendants were still living in southeastern Arizona. Their onetime woodworking skills were unsurpassed, producing some of the most virtuosic and dazzling Indian art in the world — that is, until the number of tribesmen declined and survival became more difficult and their craftsmanship suffered. That morning, Benny had received a call from the appraiser, who had sent snapshots of the totem pole taken at the storage facility to members of the tribe in Arizona. He informed Benny that the chief of the tribe had confirmed with near-absolute certainty that the pole was theirs. “And there are like. . ten of these Indians left in the world,” said Benny. “I’m exaggerating, but just barely. And they can’t make these things anymore — not like how they used to. Which explains the hefty price tag. It’s irreplaceable.” “How on earth,” said Marcia, “did Brizz ever get ahold of it?” “The sixty-thousand-dollar question,” replied Benny. “Or why didn’t he sell it when he needed the money? I have no idea — and I have no idea why he gave it to me and not somebody else. So not knowing why, I hung on to it. But now, I don’t see I have much of a choice but to give it back to them, knowing how few of them there are left.” “Maybe that’s why he gave it to you, Benny — because he knew you’d find the right guys to give it to.” “Maybe,” said Benny. “But one thing I told those Indians, I’m not paying the shipping and handling. That’s up to you guys.” “You spoke to them?” “On the phone,” he said. “By the way, I meant to tell you. I like your new haircut.”

Immediately she turned away from him and her hand rose up to greet her hair in a tentative and self-conscious manner, as if she were trying to hide it from him. “Don’t talk about my hair right now,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s stupid. We’re talking about something else.”

“Don’t you like it?” he asked.

She turned to the opposite wall, as if expecting a mirror there, something reflective to see herself in. “I don’t know,” she said. “Let’s not talk about it.”

“I think it’s a great update,” he said.

She turned back to him. “Update?” she said. “What the hell does that mean?”

“No, I just meant —”

“That’s a pretty shitty thing to say,” she said.

“No —”

“I have no idea what the hell it means,” she said, “but it sounds pretty shitty.”

“No, I was just saying I liked it.”

“Update,” she said. “You don’t say ‘update,’ Benny. That’s the wrong word.”

No! NO! He had tried to say it just right! He had considered other options, alternative phrases, but he thought what he had settled on was perfect. He had rehearsed it over and over again, practicing a nonchalance in his voice, then waited for the exact right moment — and still he flubbed it! He probably should have run it by a copywriter.

Even with the best of intentions, it was impossible not to offend one another. We fretted over the many insignificant exchanges we found ourselves in from day to day. We weren’t thinking, words just flew from our mouths — unfettered, un-thought-out — and next we knew, we had offended someone with an offhand and innocent remark. We might have implied someone was fat, or intellectually simple, or hideously ugly. Most of the time we probably felt it was true. We worked with some fat, simple people, and the hideously ugly walked among us as well. But by god we wanted to keep quiet about it. If in large part we were concerned only with making it through another day without getting laid off, there was a smaller part just hoping to leave for the night without contributing to someone’s lifetime of hurt. And then there were those, like Marcia, who had the ability to turn even a compliment into an insult, bringing us (Benny especially) to our knees so that the only way to win was to remain silent, absolutely silent — unless, of course, the opportunity presented itself to bloody a scalp and leave it on Benny’s desk.

“I’m sorry if I offended you,” said Benny. “I was just trying to say it looked nice.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t take compliments very well. Was I mean to you just then?”

“No, no, not at all,” he assured her.

Suddenly Genevieve was standing in his doorway. Benny went quiet. Marcia saw his attention diverted and turned and saw Genevieve, too.

“Marcia, can I talk to you?”

Like that, Genevieve was gone. Marcia looked back at Benny. “Sure,” she called out after her, rising quickly. Benny had never seen Marcia’s eyes so wide.

“Benny,” she whispered.

“Go,” he said.

When Marcia left, Benny called Jim to tell him the news but Jim wasn’t picking up. He stood and walked out into the hallway. Things were quiet. He went back inside and put another call in to Jim. Again no answer. He went back out into the hallway. Everything was calm and empty. The large fake plants stood unstirred at both ends of the hall, and on the walls between the doorways hung all of the agency’s past advertising awards, collecting dust. He returned and called Jim a third time. Then he e-mailed him to tell him to listen to his voice mails. He spent two minutes waiting for a reply at his desk before deciding to hunt Jim down. He went back out into the hallway, but he stopped when he saw Karen Woo approaching. He had no desire to be the one to let Karen know that Genevieve had emerged from Lynn’s office. She would only spread the news around. So he casually lifted his arms and grabbed ahold of the top of the doorway, as if he were just hanging out, having a stretch. Karen grew closer, and he thought they might just greet each other and nothing more. And in fact, she seemed to have no intention of stopping and chatting, which was a relief. She just said, “Turns out Lynn doesn’t have cancer after all,” and then she passed by and disappeared down the hall.

MARCIA STOOD WITH HER BACK against the closed door of Genevieve’s office while Genevieve paced behind her desk, occasionally stopping to grab the back of her chair, as if to throttle it.

It was very simple. Lynn sat down at her desk and the question of where to start, how to broach the subject, eluded Genevieve entirely. Luckily, Joe began to speak. She couldn’t remember what he said, exactly, but he was very direct. Genevieve was nervous. She had to keep reminding herself of why she was there. This person who could so thoroughly dominate every other aspect of life — who dusted with domination — was really very sick inside, and weak, and in need of intervention, even if that intervention came from a cowed underling sitting mutely beside Joe. If she had not kept that in mind, she would have had to excuse herself for being so nervous. Joe said, basically, that a rumor had emerged, he did not know from where, that she had been diagnosed with cancer. Normally he didn’t put much stock in rumors, but he hoped she would understand why he’d give second thought to one that claimed she wasn’t well. There was the conviction among certain individuals that an important operation had been scheduled for yesterday, but that she had missed it. Perhaps deliberately. Her aversion to hospitals — something of a well-known fact — might explain why. He was there — and then he remembered Genevieve and turned to her. “The two of us are here,” he said, turning back to Lynn, “to let you know that these rumors are out there, they’re floating around, I don’t know to what degree of truth, but if there is something we can do for you, if we can help you in any way —”

“Joe, have they suckered you into it at last?” she asked him.

It? What was she referring to specifically, Genevieve wondered. While Joe was speaking, the tricky smile Lynn sometimes wore to express disbelief or bemusement appeared on her face. Joe must have seen it, too. Yet he persevered. Genevieve didn’t know where he found the will to continue with Lynn Mason looking at him like that. He stopped briefly when she interrupted to ask if he’d been suckered in, but then something truly remarkable happened. He kept at it.

“No, I don’t think I’ve been suckered into anything,” he replied. “I’m not here on their behalf. I’m here for myself — and Genevieve — because I believe there might be something wrong with you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” she said simply, drawing into her hands a silver letter opener in the shape of a stiletto.

“That maybe you’re sick,” he continued — Genevieve did not know how or why and wanted him to stop — “but because of your fear, you aren’t letting yourself get looked after properly.”

“There is nothing wrong with me,” she repeated.

Joe was silent. Genevieve was ready to leave. Okay, Joe, she’s okay — let’s go. “A person with a genuine fear,” he continued, slowly, not apprehensively but patiently, as if trying to coax something out of her, “somebody incapacitated by fear, would say she wasn’t sick, if it meant she could continue with her life and not face that fear.”

Lynn offered a grudging, humorless chuckle. “I’m sorry, Joe,” she said. “Do you have access to my medical file?”

“No.”

“No,” she said, “no, I didn’t think so.”

“No, this is pure speculation, Lynn,” he continued, and by then, Genevieve felt the definite need to distance herself from Joe somehow. Not sick, Joe! Please stop talking! “Speculation that is probably not justifiable,” he continued. “But if you are sick, and scared, and keeping yourself from medical attention —”

“It was a mole,” she said.

All look of disbelief drained from her face. Now she wore a deadpan, ice-cold, corporate expression that said, simply, this is none of your business. “It was a mole they feared was cancerous, and I had the appointment rescheduled, if you must know, because of the urgency of the new business pitches. Genevieve,” she said, glancing down at the letter opener which she had been fingering while Joe spoke, “will you excuse Joe and me, please?” When she looked up at Genevieve, Genevieve said of course and left the silent office and closed the door behind her.

“A mole?” said Marcia. “This whole time it was only a mole?”

After Marcia left we heard Genevieve talking on the phone to her husband, screaming at him, though he had done nothing, poor guy. But that someone somewhere had done something terribly wrong, she was dead certain. She knew she was angry. She knew something had to be done to someone. She just didn’t know exactly what.

“Who was it?” she demanded of us. “Who was the first to say it was cancer?” We tried to tell her, Genevieve, no one knows who. No one will probably ever know who. “Well, who spread it then?” she hollered. “Who was responsible for spreading it?” She was with us yesterday when we tried figuring that one out, we reminded her, and she knew as well as we did that it was almost impossible to say who spread it. “Then whose idea was it to send Joe in there?” she asked. “Was this just some elaborate hoax to get Joe?” Well, that was just crazy talk, and we told her so — delicately, and not in so many words, because by then she had worked herself up into a fury. “Why did I get involved?” she asked. “How could I have let myself get wrapped up in this?” Now she was addressing herself, and we had no answers for her. She threw up her hands and left our offices.

We thought Joe Pope handled the whole thing with equanimity. At one point, Jim Jackers called out as Joe passed by his cube. They didn’t say a word about Lynn Mason. Jim just wanted to know if it was true that the ads for the breast cancer patient were now running in Spanish. “Does that mean we should be gearing our message toward a Latino market?” he asked.

“That’s the first I’ve heard of that,” replied Joe. “I would be very surprised if that were true. Who gave you that information?”

“I think they’re playing a joke on me,” said Jim.

“I would have to assume it’s a joke,” Joe said. It was just about the funniest joke ever.

Late in the afternoon, Genevieve sent us a group e-mail — the address list was a foot long — that denounced our “tactics,” our “sham sentiments.” We were “pathetic” and “dumb.” We had been “led by the nose” to “set Joe up.” That was ridiculous — for who would we have allowed to take us by the nose? What an elaborate and fainthearted conspiracy she envisioned. She never used the word, but it was hard not to read between the lines. How could it be a conspiracy? Was someone — say, Karen Woo — so diabolical, so shrewd, so capable of manipulating circumstance, that she could pull off with such delicacy the very subtlest of conspiracies, by spreading an outlandish yet eminently believable rumor, and then distorting the conversation she had had on the phone with the nurse at Northwestern to seal the veracity of her lies and set the fall guy up? Wasn’t that a little far-fetched, even if none of us had actually heard what the nurse had said — or could confirm that there was even a nurse on the other end? And what real damage could she have hoped to achieve? This was not, as only Hank could put it, “the sweaty Moor’s murder of Desdemona.” No way, we thought, no way it was Karen Woo. If she really wanted to stick it to Joe, we gave her enough credit to bleed the fucker dry. Besides, Genevieve had to face facts. A conspiracy was an impossible thing to prove. The most anyone could say was that this was how these things worked, here and elsewhere. Mistakes were made. Accountability got lost.

“I am DONE,” she concluded in her e-mail, and went on to list all the things she would no longer be doing with us in the future. Lunch and after-work drinks, mainly. We had heard it before. We wondered how long it would last this time.

3

ORDERING CABLE — LYNN FORGETS — BACK TO THE FUND-RAISER — ROLAND CALLS BENNY — AN INDETERMINATE FATE — ANDY SMEEJACK’S LUNCH — WHAT’S GREAT ABOUT A SILENCER — AMBER FREAKS — CARL SINGS — A QUESTION OF COURAGE — LARRY’S REVELATION — CARL GETS WEIRDED-OUT — A CONVERSATION ABOUT WORK — THE MELEE BEGINS — CHICAGO’S FINEST

THE FACT THAT LYNN MASON did indeed have breast cancer came out eventually. By then it was no longer a subject of our speculation. We had moved on, or regressed, rather, back to the question of who would be the next to go. For the morning following Genevieve’s freak-out, when we woke up all across the city and the greater metropolitan area, we still had no concepts for the pro bono project.

We didn’t give up entirely. If nothing came to us in the hour between waking and leaving, we still had the commute to work and the ride up the elevator. We had coffee at our desks and the alchemical kick of insight it promised. What would make them laugh? The ailing, the nauseous, the prepped and stitched and scarred, the toxic, the irradiated — what would make them laugh? What was funny about frailty and bad luck, about limping home to await the bad news, about wheeling around an IV pole? What was ticklish about the possibility of death — a perfectly ordinary and thus utterly baffling death?

We met at Lynn’s office at the appointed time. The dread was palpable. We found her office clean and orderly. She was sitting behind the desk, inspecting her middle drawer for things that could be tossed into the trash. She gestured silently for us to enter, as she was on the phone. She tested a Bic that gave her nothing and so she threw it out. We took our seats, criminals on the trundle cart awaiting their turn at the gallows.

“I can’t believe how hard it is to arrange for a cable guy to come to your house,” she said, after hanging up. “It’s astonishing that anyone has cable at all. Do you guys have cable?” she asked.

We all said we did.

“So somebody had to stay home one day,” she said, “and wait for the cable guy to come?”

We weren’t sure how to answer that one. An honest response would reveal that there had been a day in our dark pasts when we had taken a morning off and stayed home to await the cable guy instead of coming in to work. We didn’t want her to think we’d ever choose cable over work. Work was what allowed us to afford cable. On the other hand, there were times when we came home and really needed to veg out with some cable, and those nights reminded us that we’d have feigned the flu for an entire week if that’s what it took to get cable.

“I’m just saying there has to be an easier way,” she said. “They can’t expect you to wait home on a Tuesday from ten to two for the cable guy to come, can they?”

“They got you by the balls,” said Jim Jackers.

To Lynn he said that. It was awful. We winced terribly.

“They do got you by the balls,” Lynn agreed.

“You don’t have cable already, Lynn?” asked Benny Shassburger.

“Rabbit ears,” she said. “Pathetic, I know. But I do get The Simpsons on rerun.”

We were amazed that Lynn watched The Simpsons. Nobody was more amazed than Benny, who asked her what her favorite episode was. She had an answer for him right away. It was different from Benny’s, although each of them knew and respected the other’s favorite episode. Soon they were reciting lines. To hear Lynn Mason quote Homer Simpson was shocking. More shocking, though, was the remark Amber made when she interrupted them.

“I’ll stay home for you and wait for the cable guy,” she said.

Lynn looked at her. “I’m sorry?”

“If you need me to,” she said. “I’ll come over and wait for him.”

Lynn laughed, but not in a mocking way. It was a gentle expression of surprise. “That’s okay,” she said. “I’ll manage it somehow. Maybe my doorman can let him in.”

Amber’s sympathy for Lynn during the days we believed she had cancer had permeated so deeply into her psyche that even now, when the rumor had been retired, she still looked upon Lynn as ailing and in need of help. It was absurd and touching. Lynn changed subjects.

“Sorry, what are you guys here for again?” she asked. “Did we have a meeting?”

We all turned to Joe Pope. He reminded her that she had asked to see concepts for the pro bono ad —

“Oh, shit,” she interrupted. “That was today, wasn’t it?”

He nodded.

Lynn placed fingertips at her temples. “Joe, it completely slipped my mind.” She shook her head. She looked around. “I’m sorry, guys. My mind is entirely on this new business.”

“Should we come back?” he asked.

Simultaneously we all fell to the hard carpet and began to pray. We prostrated ourselves before her, our pathetic and undeserving selves, and pleaded for mercy. More time — please give us more time! It must be said: we were a small, scared, spineless people. In reality we sat perfectly still, silently holding our breath.

“No no,” she said. “Show me what you got.”

“Well,” he said, “after the change came in from the client —”

“Change?” she said. “What change?”

“The e-mail you forwarded me?”

“Oh, right,” she said. “Remind me?”

Remind me? What the hell was going on here? We had spent hours and hours speculating on the nature of this pro bono project, and she didn’t seem to recall the first thing about it. So Joe explained the change, as well as the difficulties we had been encountering. He went so far as to suggest that what the client now requested might be impossible to achieve, but if we were to achieve it, we’d certainly need more time.

“Well, that’s the one thing we no longer have,” she said. “Our first priority is to win this new business for the agency. We can’t waste any more time on charity work.”

She asked us if we had generated concepts for the fund-raiser. We all said we did.

“Then bring them to me,” she said. “That’s what they wanted initially, that’s what they’re getting.”

So we left her office to retrieve our fund-raiser concepts. When we returned, she looked through them and, in the end, chose Karen Woo’s “Loved Ones” campaign. It was disgusting to look over and see Karen’s face just then. Lynn asked Karen to forward them to her. She would PDF them over to the client herself. “And if they don’t like them,” she concluded, “they can find a new agency. Because right now, we have bigger fish to fry.”

“Lynn,” said Karen. “How come I can’t find any presence for this Alliance Against Breast Cancer on the Internet?”

“Karen,” said Joe.

“Thank you for your hard work, everyone,” said Lynn.

And with that, our pro bono project came to an end.

BECAUSE OF THE NEW BUSINESS, we didn’t have much of a chance to talk over this unexpected development. We had an input meeting midmorning during which we discussed the caffeinated water client and their needs. Directly after that we had another input meeting to go over the creative needs of the running shoe manufacturer. We all knew the importance of winning new business, so after these meetings we returned to our desks and started to brainstorm.

And so it was a full office when, near noon, Benny got a call from Roland. Roland was manning the front desk of the downstairs lobby, midway through a double shift. Benny had noticed that on days Roland worked a double shift, his eyes were glassy and red and stuck at half mast, that he yawned every thirty seconds, throwing his oblong, open-mouthed face up like a wolf howling at the moon, and that he sometimes stole away to fifty-nine for a twenty-minute nap. This was a postretirement gig for Roland so he could supplement his Social Security. Who was going to begrudge the man twenty minutes? According to Benny, the naps were badly needed. “One Friday,” Benny told us once, “he kept calling me Brice. I didn’t say anything to him because I knew he knew my name and I didn’t want to embarrass him, but Brice? Why Brice?” Jim Jackers suggested “Lenny” would have been more likely, or even “Timmy.” “Timmy makes more sense than Brice,” said Jim. “At least it rhymes with Benny.” “Jim, Nancy makes more sense than Brice,” said Benny. “Who calls somebody Brice? Anyway, I didn’t say anything to him, and by Monday he was calling me Benny again. It’s those double shifts, man. They muddle his brain.”

When Benny picked up the phone, Roland told him that he believed Tom Mota might be in the building. “And maybe he just got on the express elevator,” he added. “What do you mean maybe?” asked Benny. Later, when recounting the story, Benny thought it was perfectly possible the man was hallucinating, given that it was a Friday and he was on the tail end of a double shift. “What makes you think it was even Tom?” he asked. But instead of listening to Roland’s response, in his head, Benny heard Amber. Again he dismissed her prognostications of Tom’s return as the anxieties of a worrying homebody. He trusted in Tom’s better instincts and wasn’t inclined to think that anyone was in any immediate danger. But regardless of how he felt, if Tom really was back, some people would definitely want to know. There was also the possibility that Benny knew nothing about Tom’s better instincts. “Why are you calling me about this?” Benny suddenly interrupted Roland in midspeech.

“. . and said he had a package to deliver,” Roland continued, “so I sent him up on the express elevator. Because I can’t get ahold of Boroshansky,” Roland added, belatedly answering Benny’s question, “and I thought somebody up there should know about this.”

“Wait, Roland — you mean to say he approached you, and you looked at him, and you still can’t be sure it was him?”

“Because of the makeup!” cried Roland, exasperated.

“What makeup?”

“Haven’t you been listening to me?”

Benny hadn’t heard a word he’d said. “No,” he said. “What are you talking about, makeup?”

“Hold on a second,” said Roland. “That’s Mike on the Motorola.”

Benny waited. What was he waiting for? Instructions from a bleary-eyed, untrained security guard with scant natural aptitude for his post, debilitated by a double shift. The smart thing would be to hang up. He waited. Roland came back on.

“Benny? Yeah, it’s Roland.”

“Well, who else would you be?” Benny replied impatiently.

“Mike thinks you should warn people.”

Benny hung up. He walked out into the hallway. To his left he caught sight of Marcia, who at that instant had reached the end of the hallway, turned left, and disappeared, leaving nothing but the dusty leaves of the fake potted tree to quiver in her wake. He thought of running after her, but he was distracted by movement to his right. Hank had rounded the opposite corner in perfect synchronization with Marcia and then he, too, disappeared, into his office. Benny was left to stare at the other potted tree, the mirror image of the one he just turned away from. For the briefest moment he stood frozen, equidistant from both trees, uncertain what to do.

Roland couldn’t say for sure that the man he had seen was Tom, so Benny couldn’t say for sure that it was Tom coming up on the express elevator. Even if it was him, Benny couldn’t say that Tom intended anyone any harm. He had no instinct for what to do with the limited information he did have. Should he start to scream? Cower under his desk? Or should he go stand by the elevator and be the first to greet Tom? During that brief moment, the empty hallway felt possessed of a haunted tranquillity that gave the impression that all down the hall, and down the other hallways and offshoots of hallways and the passageways between cubicle partitions, the offices and workstations had been suddenly and irrevocably vacated, and that all the corporate, animating, human life that once burbled and cackled and Xeroxed and inputted had ended with an inextricable filing away, and that all the days spent here, the time served, the camaraderie enjoyed, were now casualties of some unhappy, indeterminate fate.

In the next instant, there was a flurry of activity. Hank reemerged from his office and disappeared around the same corner he had lately come from, Marcia returned around the same corner where she had lately disappeared, and Reiser, in need of a hallway break, limped out of his office to the right of Benny. Reiser gripped the Louisville Slugger he kept in one corner of his office and tapped it on the heel of his shoe, as if approaching home plate. Larry and Amber, on the other side of Benny, suddenly spilled out into the hallway too, trying to contain a quiet, fierce disagreement just as Marcia approached, forcing her to pass tenderly between the two lovers as if trying to avoid a land mine. She was preparing to pass Benny with nothing more than a grimace of discomfort for having to walk past such office awkwardness. Benny thought it wiser to whisper than to wail, so very casually he reached out and took Marcia’s arm. She was wearing the pink cotton hoodie she wore whenever she complained of being cold. Beneath it, her arm was soft and thin and felt good in his hand.

“Marcia,” he said. “Tom Mota might be back in the building.”

TOM MOTA TOOK THE EXPRESS elevator past sixty all the way up to sixty-two. Sixty, sixty-one, and sixty-two were connected by interior stairs, so anyone could move freely between them. No one saw Tom as he stepped from the elevator.

He must have walked straight and then taken a right at the wall that dead-ended at the print station. He walked on until he reached the hallway juncture, allowing him to go in either direction. He chose to proceed left, passing the men’s and women’s restrooms to his right, turned left again, and walked down that hallway, flanked on one side by beige cubicle walls and on the other by the windowed offices coveted by those inside the beige cubicles. Overhead the ceiling panels alternated, two white tiles for every panel of fluorescent light. Tom proceeded to walk on the beige carpet beneath them.

Andy Smeejack was sitting behind his desk in one of the windowed offices, trying with his stubby, maladroit fingers to crack a hard-boiled egg. Andy was in Account Management. Cracking it was easy — he held the egg like a polished stone and tapped it softly against the edge of his desk. He had laid a napkin down where he planned to collect the bits of shell, but that particular egg clung to each and every piece like a stubborn, protective motherland, and Andy was forced to get surgical on it — probably a comical sight, this hulking, dieting giant patiently picking off the shell of his desperately meager, entirely unsatisfying lunch. He was loath to yield even a fraction of rubbery egg white to the smallest bit of shell. Unfortunately, his clumsy fingers were much more spry at grabbing juicy Italian beef sandwiches and greasy fat cheeseburgers, and now large swaths of his lunch were being ripped off in his haste, leaving him with a moon-cratered egg darkened by the gray yolk inside. When he finally looked up, taking half the egg in his mouth, he saw the clown standing in eerie, carnivalesque incongruity in his doorway. The clown’s face was painted bright red, with a broad white band encircling his mouth. A fat red ball made of foam was attached to his nose. The clown’s head was a carrot-colored mass of jubilant curls, and his oversized bow tie was red and white striped. He wore suspenders and baggy blue pants. Andy, halted from chewing and unable to say much with his mouth full, looked closer at the clown. He was holding a backpack in one hand, and in the other. .

Tom and Andy once got into a shouting match over a miscommunication that resulted in the missing of an important deadline, and neither of them had ever forgotten it.

“You know what’s so great about a silencer, Smeejack?” Tom asked, raising the gun. He pulled the trigger. “It silences,” he said.

“OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD,” Amber kept saying. She placed her hands on her still-flat belly and all that was just then growing inside. Her plump knees buckled a little, and Larry had to reach out for her. “Amber,” he said. “Amber, we should move. We should move, Amber.” Benny and Marcia exchanged a look.

“Amber,” Benny repeated, “I don’t know for sure that he’s even in the building, do you understand?”

“Oh my god, oh my god.”

Larry was holding her up by her arms. “Amber, let’s just move, okay? Let’s not stay here.”

“She might be hyperventilating,” said Benny.

“Benny,” said Marcia, “there’s Joe.”

Benny looked down the hall just as Joe was entering his office at the far end, near the elevators.

“Oh my god, oh my god.”

Her panicky, tear-inflected singsong quavered as if she had already been witness to unspeakable violence.

“Larry, Marcia and I are going down to tell Joe,” said Benny, “so it’s up to you to get her to calm down.”

“What do you think I’m trying to do here?” asked Larry. “Amber, are you listening to Benny? You have to calm down. We’re going to take the emergency stairs, okay? Let’s just take the emergency stairs.”

But Amber didn’t want to take the emergency stairs. She didn’t want to take the elevator because he was coming up in the elevator. She didn’t want to go back into her office because he was coming for her in her office. To go anywhere at all she had to walk the hall, and the hall was the worst place of all, exposed and defenseless and easily targeted, so she remained frozen, trying not to collapse, saying over and over, “Oh my god, oh my god,” as copious and automatic tears flowed easily from her eyes and Larry tried to coax her, convince her, wake her, budge her — something, anything, before Tom Mota showed his face.

Benny and Marcia hurried down to Joe’s office. While they had been wasting time with Amber, Joe had left it again.

SMEEJACK LOOKED DOWN at his classic oxford and tie at the place where he had been shot and was astonished by the bright red color and how quickly it had appeared and how smartly he stung beneath it, and randomly it came back to him, the vivid memory of shopping for the shirt at the big-and-tall store in the Fox Valley Mall, the Muzak and burbling fountain, and the popcorn and the hot pretzel he ate, and he couldn’t repress the thought, “My last meal was an egg.” Then out loud he said, “Ow. Fuck.” And a little yolk flew from his mouth.

He called 911 and realized that he couldn’t speak. He spit the egg violently from his mouth. “Please send an ambulance,” he said. Then he began to cry.

By then Tom had moved on.

CARL GARBEDIAN WAS SINGING. Genevieve Latko-Devine was sure of it. Sure that someone was singing, anyway, and from where she sat in her office on sixty-one, she believed it was coming from next door — yes, from Carl’s office. Singing! Really it was more like an atonal mumble, and she hadn’t picked up on it immediately, as all her energy and attention were dedicated to coming up with caffeinated water concepts. But at some point the warble reached the outer limit of her radar, and she thought, “Is Carl singing?” So she got up from her desk and entered the hallway and crept along the few feet of wall separating her doorway from Carl’s, and sure enough, he was singing. He had a mirthless, workaday voice, half the words were unknown to him, and he kept repeating the same stanza over and over again — but it was in fact a song:

“He got himself a homemade special

Something something full of sand

And it feels just like a something

The way it fits into his hand. .”

Carl Garbedian was singing! He was offering hellos in the morning, he was saying good evenings at night, and now at midday, he was singing. And it wasn’t the mad loud caterwauling spontaneously indulged during his whacked-out days of popping Janine Gorjanc’s pills. No, this was regular old passing-the-time, happy-to-be-alive singing. She thought this surprising show of life might have something to do with the possibility that Carl and his wife were reconciling. If Carl had only known how delighted his simple singing made her! She wouldn’t do something so stupid as interrupt and explain — that would only ruin the moment, and make them both feel awkward. But if she could have communicated to him how his singing was a simple reinforcement of something essential, which commonly went missing on a day-to-day basis — that his singing was to her what Marcia’s haircut had been to him — he might have organized a talent show and performed a number from A Chorus Line with gold-spangled top hat and cane.

REALLY THE SONG WAS just stuck in Carl’s head, and the motivation to sing purely mechanical. The work he had before him, this new business, it was just more of the same, really. Not something that would cause him to break out into song. And the recent developments with Marilynn, they were positive, but the two of them had a long way to go — she was still picking up her phone when they were saying good-bye, and he was still living alone in the suburban town house they had been unable to rent for months. The medication was working, no doubt about it, but his life still seemed empty, at least when he compared it to his wife’s, and he still puzzled over how one could be thirty-six and still not know what to do with one’s life. Which is not to say he wasn’t, strictly speaking, in a song-singing mood. Because he did have a little something to fantasize about, as he sat working methodically and joylessly at the tedious, somewhat anxiety-producing task of winning new business.

“Why not quit?” Tom Mota had asked him in an e-mail sent earlier that day. “I’m sure you’ve had this thought a million times, and probably answered yourself with a million good reasons why not. Can I guess at a few? You have no other training. You’ve let too many years go by to start a new profession or return to school. And how could you let your wife be the main breadwinner? Etc etc etc. But have I got the answer for you! (Two weeks after being jerked off by Lynn Mason and I still can’t stop sounding like a goddamn ad.) Anyway, I was thinking the other day, what am I going to do with myself? What do I got? I got no wife. I got no kids. I do have a dead-end, routinized, enervating, obsequious, numbingly dull — oops! Nope, don’t even got a job anymore, do I? A small amount of money left over from the sale of my house — that’s it. When that’s gone, what will I do? Get another job in advertising? First of all, not given the current job climate. Second of all, NO FUCKING WAY, NOT IN THIS LIFETIME! So what am I suggesting? I’ll tell you what I’m suggesting. I’m suggesting starting my own landscaping business. And I want you, Carl, to join me. I think that some communion with nature, even if it is just the goddamn lawns of suburban yokels, and the pathetic green postage stamps in the industrial parks of Hoffman Estates or Elk Grove Village, I think it might be exactly what’s missing in your life, Carl — what you lack without knowing you lack it. Think of it. The sun on the back of your neck. The taste of cold water after you’ve worked up a genuine thirst. The pleasures of a well-groomed lawn. And the sleep you will enjoy when every bone and muscle in your body has been thoroughly exhausted. I plan on being in the office later today to talk to Joe Pope. I’ll stop by your office. THINK ABOUT IT. Peace, Tom.”

ONCE SHE HAD DETERMINED that Carl Garbedian was actually singing, Genevieve snuck away from his door and walked in the direction of the kitchen. In the cupboards we had an endless supply of individually packaged, calorie-free powders that we kept next to the cup-o-soups and the silver bags of coffee grounds, and all you had to do for a fruit punch was add cold water from the cooler. On her way down the hall, she passed a man dressed as a clown. She tried not to look. It was obviously someone hired for a singing telegram or some other professional service and he was probably sick of being stared at in office buildings. “Genevieve,” said the clown as he went by, as if he were tipping his hat to her on a dusty street of the Old West. It startled her, halted her abruptly, turned her around in her tracks. The clown continued on without an explanation or even a backward glance. “Who is that?” she asked. But whoever it was didn’t answer, and entered Carl Garbedian’s office without so much as a knock.

WHEN BENNY AND MARCIA WALKED into Joe’s office and discovered he wasn’t there, Marcia, who had not left Benny’s side since he reached out and took her arm, looked at him and asked, “What do we do now?”

He had no immediate answer. “We don’t even know that Tom’s in the building,” he said. “We could be totally overreacting. Roland’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer.”

“But what if he is here?”

“What if?” said Benny. “Maybe he’s just come to say hello.”

“What if not?” said Marcia.

Gone, suddenly, was her spunk, her sass, her strutting and calling out how she saw things without softening or accounting for feeling. Replacing all that now in Joe’s office was someone much smaller — a hundred and ten pounds with a very thin, pale neck and bright Irish eyes, spooked by Amber’s hysterical reaction. And now she was asking him, Benny Shassburger, the boy-faced and slightly overweight Jew from Skokie who, despite the Jews’ well-documented historical peril, had grown up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago knowing no greater danger than a wild curveball thrown at his head during a pony league game. Marcia Dwyer, who had laughed at him yesterday for not knowing the difference between an Allen wrench and a socket wrench. Marcia, who he was madly in love with. She was asking him to take charge. Do something! Save lives, if lives need saving! See me to safety! He nearly collapsed under the weight of it. But then he rose to the occasion. Recalling suddenly that they were standing in Joe’s office, and the ongoing antagonism between Joe and Tom in their day, he said, “We leave this office, that’s the first thing we do.”

As they departed, for a brief second, in the midst of confusion and fear, he felt flattered. My love Marcia, looking to me for guidance!

In the next instant, pure, blood-chilling fear snapped him out of it. The doors to the elevator opposite them suddenly flew open.

It was only that clueless goober Roland, finally making his way up from the ground floor.

“Have you seen him yet?”

“You’re not even sure it is him!” cried Benny.

“I know,” said Roland, “I know.” He shook his head, deeply disappointed with himself. “But Mike wants everybody to evacuate anyway,” he said, “just to be on the safe side. He told me to tell everyone to take the emergency stairs.”

“Why not the elevators?” asked Benny.

“Because Mike said,” said Roland.

So Benny and Marcia hurried to the emergency stairs. As they started their descent in the cold echoing stairwell, Benny could not stop himself from thinking — much as he couldn’t help feeling flattered in Joe’s office when she had turned to him for help — that in its way, this was romantic. Taking the stairs with Marcia, their hearts racing, fleeing death together. He had to consciously stop himself from turning to her on one of the landings and grabbing both of her doe-like arms and finally declaring his love for her. It would have been a poorly timed moment, and much more likely that she would have replied not by saying, “You like me, Benny?” but “Are you out of your fucking mind, telling me this right now?” Better to tell her after all this was over, which he promised himself he would do. Finally he would get up the courage. That whole business about Marcia not being Jewish, that was only to protect himself from the humility of rejection if it turned out Marcia didn’t feel the same way. As long as Marcia would agree to raise the children as Jews, he really didn’t give a damn what his aunt Rachel on her West Bank settlement thought of his apostasy.

They took the stairs quickly. They said nothing, but it was still good to be the one accompanying her from the building. He was glad it was him and not somebody else, and the only thing that could have improved matters was if he had had the nerve to take her by the hand. But that was the same nerve he needed to admit his crush, a nerve he didn’t seem to possess. Nerve, he thought — and the next thing he knew, he was seized with a thought as inappropriate as confessing his love: when all was said and done, would she think he was a coward for having fled with her down the stairs, when what he should have done was stay with Roland and tell the others to evacuate? He wanted nothing more right then than to share the experience of fleeing the building with Marcia. What couple could say they had done that together? But was it more important than letting her know that he wasn’t a coward? He regretted his next thought even more: wasn’t it in fact more important not to be a coward than to flee the building? Without considering his duty or the question of his courage, he had followed Roland’s instructions from Mike Boroshansky and hurried out the heavy gray door. Was it the right thing to have done? To leave everyone’s fate in the hands of Roland — that was dicey business. Suddenly the final, most inappropriate thought of all came to him, and he forgot Marcia entirely. Grabbing hold of the rail to halt his momentum, he stopped abruptly in the middle of a flight of stairs. Marcia made it to the bottom before turning back, and on the landing between the forty-eighth and forty-seventh floors, she looked up at him and saw that he had stopped, and the expression on his face was full of reticence and uncertainty. “What did you forget?” she asked. He just stood there, not looking at her, but not not looking at her, either, staring indeterminately with eyes glassy and faraway. He focused finally just as the fleeing footsteps of others began to descend upon them.

“Jim,” he said.

LARRY HAD FINALLY MANAGED to coax Amber into the server closet on sixty, which felt more like a walk-in refrigerator. The small room was bright, well insulated, and maintained at a steady temperature so the elaborate machines didn’t overheat. Larry and Amber went to the back and hid behind the black metal shelving that supported the hardware, while Larry tried to calm her hyperventilating tears by saying, “Shh.” “Shh,” he kept saying, as she clung to him in their contorted, half-fallen position in the far corner behind the massive wire coils spilling from the well-spaced servers humming like fans on their shelves. “Shh,” he said, as she buried her face into his chest and wept as soundlessly as she possibly could, heaving in his arms with her great waves of irrepressible fear, until his T-shirt had soaked up so many of her tears that he felt them cooling on his skin in the intemperate air. “Shh,” he said, even as a malignant, hopeful thought crept over him, as sinister and troll-like as an evil wish in a fairy tale doomed to end badly: rather than killing them, maybe Tom Mota was actually saving Larry’s life by traumatizing Amber so thoroughly that she would have a miscarriage. Wouldn’t that be a great turn of events. Because if the trauma wasn’t sufficient to rid them of the problem at hand, and if she fell on the wrong divide of the debate, which seemed more and more likely as the days progressed — to put it plainly, if that baby didn’t disappear, Larry Novotny might as well throw open the door and holler at Tom wherever he may be to please come spray them with automatic fire because his life was over. Over. His wife had given birth to a child herself just a little over a year ago, and their marriage was too fragile, too young, too troubled already to withstand the revelation of an infidelity, even a little workday one that had meant nothing, Susanna, swear to god it meant nothing. “Shh,” he kept saying, as he grew more and more angry with Amber and her crying. She was always concentrating on crises happening elsewhere, while paying little attention to the one growing and dividing, dividing and growing within her very body, the body of the woman he had once desperately desired but now had come to mildly hate, the woman he held in his arms as she wept and trembled like a child but as only an adult can tremble, fully aware of the possibilities of violence and death. “Shh,” he said, when what he wanted to say was, “Listen, I really need you to tell me once and for all that you’re having this abortion.” Because if she wanted to avoid carnage and annihilation, if she cared a whit about limiting the destruction, she would do something about those cells activating and organs maturing right there inside of her — otherwise his marriage was in bloody fucking tatters. “Shh,” he said, and this time he added, “Amber, shh. Why are you so hysterical?” She lifted her head off his chest and looked at him. The raw rims of her nose were bright red and her pale cheeks were wet and puffy. “Because I’m scared,” she whispered breathlessly between sobs. “But we don’t even know that he’s out there.” “I’m not scared for me,” she said. “Can we please stop talking?” But he didn’t want to stop talking. “Who are you scared for?” he asked, with a creeping concern. “Me?” he suggested. “Are you scared for me?” She put her head back on his chest and resumed trembling. “Lynn Mason?” he asked. She wouldn’t reply. He went down the list. Was it Marcia? Benny? Joe Pope? How could any of them be the cause of such emotion?

And then the scales fell from his eyes. The day she had decided to keep the baby had come and gone and he had not known it. Hers were the tears of a mother, her fear a mother’s fear.

TOM WALKED INTO CARL GARBEDIAN’S OFFICE without so much as a knock and sat down across from him. He stared at Carl without saying a word, relishing with a smug smile the confused expression on Carl’s face at the sudden sight of a clown, resolving to say nothing until he spoke. Carl looked, and then looked closer. “Tom?” he said.

“You guessed it,” said Tom.

Carl leaned back warily in his chair and reconnoitered the full scope of Tom’s appearance with a skeptical and hesitant eye. “Tom, why are you dressed like that?” he asked with a quiet temerity.

“Carl, of all people, I would think that you would see the humor in this,” Tom said. “Why aren’t you laughing? Why aren’t you shitting your pants with laughter right now?”

If Carl was tempted right then to shit his pants, the cause was probably not laughter.

“Don’t you think this is funny?” asked Tom. “I come back here dressed as a clown! It’s my homecoming, and look at me! I would think you would think this was funny, Carl.”

Carl managed to make something like a smile and agreed with Tom that it was funny. “It’s just the meds,” he added, by way of explaining the delayed hilarity. “They tend to even me out.”

Tom looked away in perfect disappointment. He turned back and asked, with a petulant and exasperated tone, “Doesn’t anybody have a sense of humor around here?” He was offended once again by our failures of character. “‘TOM, THAT YOU, TOM? YOU COME TO BLOW US ALL AWAY IN A CLOWN OUTFIT, TOM?’ Is that all I get from you guys? Why do you see me dressed like this and take it so goddamn seriously?”

“Because clowns are kind of scary, I guess,” Carl ventured. “To me, at least. And especially when you don’t know why somebody would be dressed up like one.”

“Well, maybe I got me a job as a clown,” said Tom, widening his eyes so their whites really popped amid all that red makeup. “Ever think of that?”

“Is it true?” asked Carl hopefully.

He wanted to call his wife. From the moment the clown came in and sat down Carl knew something was wrong and wanted the opportunity to speak to Marilynn one last time. She was so good. She had the hardest job. She had loved him very much.

Tom situated his backpack on the chair next to him and leaned forward, interlocking his fingers and placing his folded hands on the edge of Carl’s desk. “Let me ask you a serious question, Carl, and you be honest with me, okay? You tell me the truth. You fucks thought I was coming back here for target practice, didn’t you? Honestly — everybody was predicting it, weren’t they?”

Weirded-out, and reluctant to say just about anything, Carl didn’t know the prudent answer.

“Just answer the question, Carl. It’s a simple question.”

“Well,” Carl began, “a few people —”

“I knew it!” cried Tom, jolting out of his chair and looming over Carl’s desk. “I fucking knew it!” He was pointing at Carl as if Carl were the spokesman for all the fucks in the world.

“You didn’t let me finish,” said Carl.

“You fucks actually thought I was coming back here to blow people to bits,” said Tom, shaking his orange curls in grave, exaggerated disappointment and violently tapping Carl’s desk three times. “Unbelievable.”

“Why are you back here, Tom — isn’t that a fair question? And why the clown outfit?”

Tom sat back down again and struck a less aggressive perch on his seat. Carl was grateful for it. Since walking in, Tom seemed to be right up in his face. “I’ll tell you why I’m back here,” he said. “I came to ask Joe Pope to lunch, that’s why. That’s right — Joe. But then this other idea came to me, and it sort of took on a life of its own. So now I’m dressed like a clown. Why? I’ll tell you why I’m dressed like a clown,” he said, reaching over and unzipping his backpack, from which he removed his gun.

Carl wheeled back hastily, all the way to the credenza, and hoisted his clammy palms in the air. “Hey, Tom,” he said, just as tears sprang instinctively to his eyes.

He wanted so badly to talk to his wife. He was reminded of that distant, phantasmagoric episode in his life when he had stood at the pawn shop fingering a Luger. He recalled all the pills he had hoarded, and the time he sat in the garage with the key in the ignition, towels plugging every gap where the exhaust might escape, so that once he had the nerve to turn over the engine, it would be done. Who was that person? Not him, not any longer. He wanted to live! He wanted to landscape! He wanted more than anything just to call his wife.

“Oh, put your hands down, Carl,” said Tom. “I’m not going to shoot you, you fuck.”

“I thought you wanted to start a landscaping company,” said Carl. “I’ve been thinking about it all morning. The sun on my neck, remember? You and me — I could come up with some money, I love the idea. Why would you want to do something stupid?” He clattered unthinkingly, hoping to say the right thing.

“Listen to me, Carl,” said Tom. “Carl, shut up! Listen to me. I’m dressed like a clown because every single one of you fucks in this office at one time or another thought that Tom Mota was nothing but a clown, am I right? Be honest with me, Carl. Am I right?”

“To be honest with you, Tom, it’s hard to be honest with you when you’ve got a gun pointed at me.”

“I’m not going to shoot you, Carl! Just be honest. Everybody thought I was a clown, didn’t they?”

“I think,” Carl began, trying to breathe, to contain his fear, to gauge what action he might need to take, “I think everyone knew you were going through a tough time, Tom. . and that you probably. . you weren’t behaving like your normal self. I think that’s —”

“In other words,” said Tom, “a clown.”

“I never once heard anyone use that particular expression,” replied Carl, who still had his hands up.

“Carl, will you relax, please, Jesus. It’s not a real gun. Doesn’t anybody know the difference? Here, watch —”

Tom pointed the gun at one corner of the office and pulled the trigger. Splat! went the pellet, and a dousing of red paint coated the corner walls in a comic-book-like blot. Carl looked in wild-eyed astonishment, yet still refused to put his hands down. His shirt was dusted with red blowback from the pellet. He looked back at Tom.

“Are you fucking crazy?” he asked.

“No, I’m a clown,” said Tom. “And you know what clowns do, don’t you, Carl?”

“No, you fucking maniac!”

“Careful, Carl,” said Tom, motioning with the gun to the backpack in the seat beside him. “I might have a real one in there.”

“What do clowns do?” asked Carl, a little more mildly.

Tom warped his mouth into a severe hangdog frown and raised his brows to complete a picture of melancholy. “We’re such sad creatures at heart, us clowns,” said Tom. “Down-and-out and full of woe. So to make ourselves feel better —” Tom’s face blossomed into a smile like a flower drawn from his sleeve — “we pull pranks!”

JOE NEEDED A NICKEL. He could have sworn that when he left his office he had had every coin he needed to get a pop from the machine but he was shy a nickel and had to return. He took it from the mug where he kept spare change and left the office again, spying Benny and Marcia and Amber and Larry in the hallway engaged in some new drama, not exactly working on winning the new business. The elevator doors had yet to close again and he raced to catch them. If he had lingered in the hall to speculate why they were all in hysterics, they would have silently accused him of scolding them from afar, and that was a tired accusation — though on this occasion it would have been correct. Because Jesus Christ, did they not understand? We had to win the new business!

He returned to the cafeteria on fifty-nine to buy his pop and was about to leave when he saw Lynn sitting in the far back at one of the round tables under the bright and appalling fluorescence. “What are you doing down here?” he asked, approaching her. She was alone and, despite all the noise he had made, the dropping coins and the falling can, she seemed to be taking notice of him for the first time.

She watched him draw closer, two fingers at her temple.

He set the pop on the table. She kicked out a chair for him. He sat down and opened the pop and the thing hissed and spit and he hunched over to slurp up the fizzing soda before it spilled over.

They sat in silence. Then she spoke to him again of things they had gone over yesterday after Genevieve had left the office — which partner would oversee the effort to secure the new business, and the ways in which he, Joe, would need to step up and assume more responsibility.

“Can I ask you a question?” he said.

“Of course.”

“Why did you lie about it to Genevieve yesterday, and then tell me the truth after she left?”

She removed her two fingers from her temple and turned them into a kind of shrug and then returned them to her temple. “I just don’t want them to know about it until the last possible second,” she replied. “I want to be in the hospital under anesthesia before they start talking.”

He nodded. “Understandable.”

“And I know I can trust you to keep it to yourself.”

They sat in silence, the only sound the refrigerated hum from the vending machines in the distance.

“Not that I believe I’ll be able to escape it,” she said. “I’ll be way, way under and their voices will probably still penetrate.”

He smiled. “Probably,” he said.

“But until they carry me kicking and screaming toward the operating room in one of those terrible green gowns, I’d prefer to keep them in the dark. Or at the very least, second-guessing.”

She sat up and placed her feet back inside her heels. She glanced over at him as she did so. “It’s very quick,” she said, “from what they tell me. A day or two and they have you out of there.”

“Is it next door?” he asked.

“Yes. Carl’s wife, actually.”

“No kidding.”

“She scares me.”

“Is that why you missed your first appointment?”

She nodded.

“What’s changed?”

“I have a friend,” she said. “He isn’t letting me get away with it this time.”

“You have a friend,” he said. He smiled.

“Is that so hard to believe?”

“No.”

“It isn’t a boyfriend,” she said.

“I’m happy to hear you have a friend,” he said. There was silence, then he said, “Do you feel sick, Lynn?”

“Do I feel sick,” she said. She thought about it. “Yes. I feel sick.”

“Would you like me to be there during the operation? Or is there something I can do for you afterward?”

“You can win this new business,” she said.

“For you, I mean.”

“That would be for me,” she said. “This is it, Joe. This is my life.”

He was silent. “You’ve worked hard.”

“Yes,” she agreed. She had finished putting on her shoes and was now sitting perpendicular to the table with her hands holding her knees. “Too hard?”

There was a note of vulnerability in the question that he wasn’t expecting. But it was also clear, the way she was looking at him, that she wanted him to answer truthfully. “I don’t know,” he said. “What’s too hard?”

“All these other people have so much going on in their lives. Their nights, their weekends. Vacations, activities. I’ve never been able to do that.”

“Which is why you’re a partner.”

“But what am I missing? What have I missed?”

“Have you been happy doing it?”

“Happy?”

“Content. Has it been worthwhile? The work.”

“Yes,” she said. “Maybe. I suppose.”

“Then you may be better off than they are. Many of them would prefer not to be here, and yet this is where they spend most of their time. Percentagewise, maybe you’re the happiest.”

“Is that how you judge it?” she asked. “It’s a percentage game?”

“I don’t know.”

“But what do they know,” she asked, “that I don’t know? That if I knew, I would prefer not to be here, too?”

“Maybe nothing,” he said.

Was she thinking of Martin, a home with Martin in Oak Park, a Volvo in the driveway and a bottle of wine breathing on the French tiles of the kitchen counter, while her child plays with a friend in the backyard? Was she thinking, Then I would be healthy? No one dies in Oak Park. Everyone in Oak Park is happy and no one ever dies.

“Or maybe everything,” he said. “I work about as much as you do. I don’t know what they know, either.”

They sat in silence.

“When should I tell them?” he asked.

“I’m rescheduled for Thursday,” she said. “You can tell them then.” She paused. “But this is the important thing,” she added. “I mean this. Above all else, Joe. Win this new business.”

TOM MOTA LEFT CARL’S OFFICE and proceeded down the interior stairs to sixty, where most of the good people he wanted to take the piss out of were located in their tidy workstations, like that fuck Jim Jackers who had always been an idiot, and Benny Shassburger who still hadn’t responded to the heartfelt e-mail Tom had sent him in which he recounted his mother’s painful, ugly death. He would have liked to pump Karen Woo full of red pellets, and Dan Wisdom, painter of fish, that movie-quoting fuck Don Blattner, and the agency’s real ballbuster, Marcia Dwyer. Unfortunately for Tom, many of us were already marching down sixty flights of emergency stairs, owing to the good work of Roland. Unfortunately for the rest of us, any given floor was a circuitous blueprint of cubicle clusters, hallway offshoots, print stations, mount rooms — spaces easily overlooked — and Roland, as Benny predicted, missed many of them in his haste to reach the other floors. Tom had a fair share of unfortunate souls to shoot at once his melee began, and the bullets that came from his gun were every bit as real to us as those in the guns of the Chicago police who had just arrived outside our building, pulling up along the curb with their sirens blaring.

“‘It came into him, life,’” Tom declaimed to the fleeing backside of Doug Dion, “‘it went out from him, truth.’” He shot Doug in the back and Doug went down, bringing several of us out into the halls with his cries of traumatic certainty. Like Andy Smeejack before him, Doug confused a sting for the real thing. Tom merely needed to turn to find a new target. “‘It came to him, business,’” he trumpeted preposterously before shooting someone new, “‘it went from him, poetry.’” And also, “‘The day is always his, who works in it with serenity and great aims.’” And with a smile, he let go of another round.

They actually believed he could shoot at someone and intend them harm. That’s how little those fucks ever really knew him. He stopped midhallway to load more pellets into the gun.

We behaved as you might expect. We recoiled, hovering under our timberstick desks, collecting under conference room tables like game hens in a shooting gallery, and generally scampering for our lives. Amber Ludwig in the server closet heard shrieking from outside and went into overdrive trembling and hyperventilating, just as Larry, who had abandoned her there, disgusted by his revelation that Amber planned to carry the baby to term and convinced that her crying was baseless, backed away from the door he was tempted to open. He made no attempt to reattach himself to her. She wouldn’t have had him anyway. Instead, he took position behind the nearest of the metal shelves and prepared to push it over on Tom and beat him with wired hardware should he enter the server closet.

Benny found Jim exactly where he had predicted he would, listening to music through headphones and working on the new business. The two men tried to avoid the shrill and fearsome noises coming from unseen parts of their familiar floor by heading in the opposite direction. They had just rounded the corner past the potted tree nearest Joe Pope’s office when they ran into Genevieve, who had been frantically searching for Joe ever since the clown’s spooky greeting sent her back to Carl’s doorway and she overheard Tom telling Carl that he wasn’t going to shoot him. She worried that Joe was an obvious target and wanted to warn him, but when she couldn’t find him and people started screaming she turned distraught and now she was in tears.

“Shh, calm down,” Benny told her.

“Let’s take the elevator,” said Jim, since they were right there.

“No, we can’t,” Benny replied. “We have to take the emergency stairs.”

“Why?”

“Because Mike Boroshansky said so.”

So the three of them started off in the direction of the other potted tree and the emergency stairs on that side of the hallway, and had almost reached Benny’s office at the midway point when Tom’s voice rose up behind them in the hall and Jim suddenly went down.

“‘I content myself with the fact that the general system of our trade —’” Tom thundered, as he advanced toward them at a steady though not particularly fast pace down the hall.

“I’ve been shot!” cried Jim. “I’ve been shot!”

Benny pulled Genevieve into his office and pushed her behind the desk.

“‘— is a system of selfishness —’”

“It hurts!” cried Jim, writhing on his back. “Oh, it hurts!”

Hovering low in his doorway, Benny reached out to grab one of Jim’s hands to pull him inside the office.

“‘— is not dictated by the high sentiments of human nature —’”

Tom’s stentorian, little big man voice was growing closer. Benny pulled Jim in further as Tom shot him twice more, once in the torso and once in the leg. The skeleton with the Buck Rogers gun looked on helplessly from inside Benny’s office.

“Ow!” cried Jim. “Oh!” His eyes were as wide and fearful as a wounded dog’s.

“‘— much less by the sentiments of love and heroism —’”

Benny paused to get a closer look. That wasn’t blood. That was —

“‘— but is a system of distrust —’”

Benny stood up and entered the hallway. “Tom,” he said, “are those just fucking paintballs?”

“‘— not of giving, but of taking advantage,’” concluded Tom, standing but two feet from Benny and taking aim at his chest.

Just at that moment, Lynn and Joe stepped off the elevator and stopped abruptly in front of Joe’s office, peering down the hall. Seeing the clown with the gun, Lynn shouted, “What’s going on? Hey — what do you think you’re doing down there?”

Tom swiveled around to face them.

“Joe,” he said, resting the gun at his side. “I’ve come to take you to lunch.”

It was too late. A shirtless, shrieking Andy Smeejack had rounded the opposite corner, barreling down the hallway with bouncing man breasts and a belly white as a whale’s, leaping over Jim just as Benny turned to make room for him, and landing with crushing severity upon Tom’s absurdly festooned smallness. Both men careened into the wall and bounced off, landing with hard, nearly soundless thuds on the carpet, Smeejack on top, pinning with his tub of guts Tom’s body to the floor while pummeling him madly with sidewinders and haymakers until Joe and Benny pried him from his determination to kill the bastard with his bitter, fat, paint-flecked hands, and then the police swarmed in.

4

THE AMERICAN DREAM AND WHY WE DESERVE IT — WHO SHOULD BE DEAD — “GARBEDIAN AND SON” — USELESS SHIT — THE END OF AN ERA — WE URGE BENNY TO SAY SOMETHING — ROLAND TRICKED — A NOTE TO JIM — D.O.C. — JOE AND WHERE HE’S AT (“UP HERE”) — TOM IN LOVE — A VISIT TO THE HOSPITAL — DERIVATIVE CONCEPTS — DEPARTURES

WE BOUNCED BACK. Or we quit. Or we took a vacation. For two or three weeks there we had a tough time resisting the urge to replay events. Everyone had a version. Conflicting accounts never diminished one side or the other, they only made the matter richer. We were blowing the whole thing way out of proportion, because nobody had died, but we talked about it as if death imagined were as good as real. We stayed later than normal to talk about it or we took days off or else we called it quits. Someone from Project Services sued us, citing negligence. It was a little awkward because we still had to work with her. She approached us at the coffeemaker and the microwave to make sure we knew it was nothing personal. She was suing the building, too, along with Tom Mota and the paintball gun manufacturer. She was out of the building and two blocks down when the shooting began, but who were we to say what damages this individual or that deserved? That would be up to a jury of our peers. We had all been deposed before and would likely be deposed for this. In the meantime we had our conflicting accounts to perfect and our insatiable appetite to revisit them.

The bottled water and the running shoe were no competition against Tom Mota’s shenanigans. Something as exciting as this had not struck us since the premiere season of The Sopranos. Before that, we had to stretch back to the Clinton impeachment and the summer of Monica. But those things couldn’t hold a candle. This happened to us. And the great thing was, we could talk and talk without any of the casualties or long-term psychological damage of a Columbine or an Oklahoma City. We pretended to know something about what they had gone through. Maybe we did, who knows. Probably not.

All that week and the week following we played at the game of corporate win-win-win but our real occupation was replaying events and reflecting on the consequences of still being alive. India reentered our horizons. Again we took stock of our ultimate purpose. The idea of self-sacrifice, of unsung dedication and of dying a noble death, again reached the innermost sanctum where ordinarily resided our bank account numbers and retirement summaries. Maybe there was an alternative to wealth and success as the fulfillment of the American dream. Or maybe that was the dream of a different nation, in some future world order, and we were stuck in the dark ages of luxury and comfort. How could we be expected to break out of it, we who were overpaid, well insured, and bonanza’d with credit, we who were untrained in the enlightened practice of putting ourselves second? As Tom Mota was taking aim at our lives, we felt for a split second the ambiguous, foreign, confounding certainty that maybe we were getting what we deserved. Luckily that feeling soon passed, and when we rose up alive and returned to our desks and, later, to our lofts and condos and suburban sprawls, the feeling was that of course we deserved all that we had, we had worked long, hard hours for it all, and how dare that fucker even pretend to take it away? How grateful we were to be around to enjoy everything we deserved.

We speculated about who should be dead. Who should be in critical condition right now and who in stable condition and who would have been paralyzed for life? If Amber Ludwig had been there she would have objected to such morbid games, but Amber had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and given time off. She retreated to her mother’s house in Cleveland where she could revisit her stuffed animals and reflect on Larry’s behavior in the server closet. The rest of us would have liked some time off. They only gave us that Friday afternoon, which we took gladly, but we, too, suffered from stress and all sorts of disorders and would have liked more than an afternoon. Some of us said Friday afternoon, wow, behold the generosity. But others tried to see it from their perspective. If they didn’t win the new business, they were screwed. And who did they screw when they got screwed? You betcha. So we hustled back Monday morning and pretended to work while carrying on the conversation that started Friday after Tom’s arrest and continued unflagging through the weekend, over the phone and at brunch, with relatives and news reporters, and the central message we wanted to convey, the moral of the story and the kernel of truth, was how relieved we were not to have died at work. The last thing we wanted was to expire between cubicle partitions or in the doorways of the offices where we spent our days. Hank Neary had a quote and we told him politely to shove the quote up his ass. “When death comes, let it find me at my work.” He said he couldn’t remember if it was Ovid or Horace who said that and we replied we could give a good goddamn what Ovid the Horse said. Ovid the Horse got it wrong about death and work. We wanted to die on a boat. We wanted to die on an island, or in a log cabin on a mountainside, or on a ten-acre farm with an open window and a gentle breeze.

Carl Garbedian, god bless him, turned in his letter of resignation. If you must know the very end of our story, a story set in the pages of an Office Depot catalog, of lives not nearly as interesting as an old man and the sea, or watery-world dwellers dispelling the hypos with a maniacal peg leg, then this is its conclusion: Carl Garbedian was the only one of us who got out of advertising for good. The rest of us didn’t have the luxury of concluding like the hero of a Don Blattner screenplay, shaking off the ennui with a Himalayan trek in search of emeralds and gurus. We had our bills to pay and our limitations to consider. We had our families to support and our weekends to distract us. We suffered failures of imagination just like everyone else, our daring was wanting, and our daily contentment too nearly adequate for us to give it up. It was only Carl who got out. And wait until you hear the nail-biting adventure he embarked upon. He tendered his resignation the Monday after the shooting, and when his two weeks expired, he began implementing a business plan for the creation of a suburban landscaping company. Daredeviling to put every Blattnerian hero to shame! But good for him, we thought. If that’s really what he wants. You’d have to be a fool to give up a climate-controlled office for the Chicago heat in July, but good for him. We asked him what he planned to do in the winter. “Shovel snow for the city,” he said. We said good for you, Carl. Great Jesus! we thought. Shoveling snow? In a truck at three in the morning in a freezing February blizzard? And how much payola would he have to part with to get a snow-shoveling contract from the city? We asked him what he planned to call his landscaping company. “Garbedian and Son,” he replied. No shit? He was entering into business with his father? “No, no,” he grinned. “That’s just a little trick I picked up in advertising.”

The trick was to play loose with words. Eventually, if everything went well, “Garbedian and Son” meant three Hispanics would come to your home and manicure your lawn. When we said, “Don’t miss out on these great savings!” we really meant we gotta unload these fuckers fast. “No-Fee Rewards” meant prepare to pay out the ass. Words and meaning were almost always at odds with us. We knew it, you knew it, they knew it, we all knew it. The only words that ever meant a goddamn were, “We’re really very sorry about this, but we’re going to have to let you go.”

THEY LET GO OF MARCIA DWYER. They came for her even before the building people had finished removing the splatters of paint from the walls and carpet. Jim Jackers had seemed the next logical choice. Who in their right minds would choose Marcia over Jim? But for reasons that would remain ever obscure, they took Marcia. “Restructuring,” they said. “Lost clients.” How many times had we heard that? It still said nothing about why Marcia and not Jim. We might as well have been inquiring about the random and inscrutable selection process of fatal diseases.

They gave her a half hour in which to collect her personal items. It was part of a new protocol for the physical removal of former employees that Roland had to stand against the wall with his hands folded, mutely watching her pack. They were treating Marcia like an inmate at the Joliet Correctional Center. Perhaps it had to be that way after Tom’s arrest, but the only dangerous thing about Marcia was her glower. Did he really have to just stand there like that, as if vigilant against sudden movement? We’d seen firsthand how the man handled a crisis. If Marcia decided suddenly to brandish a stapler in a half-threatening manner, he’d fumble with his Motorola and forget his name. The least he could do was offer to help. Failing that, he could take a seat and relax.

Marcia picked her way across the desk, the credenza, and the bookshelves, removing a clock, a figurine, a cluster of books. She unplugged her radio and wound the cord around its brown plastic body and placed it in a box. Then she went through the desk drawers one redundant item at a time, investigating every matchbook, business card, hairband, Band-Aid, aspirin container, lotion bottle, bendy straw, multivitamin, magazine, nail file, nail polish, lip balm, and cough drop that had languished in her desk for who knows how long. Did it belong in a box or in the trash? She unpinned from her corkboard a collage of photographs, receipts, coupons, utility bills, personal reminders, wisdom quotes, greeting cards, ticket stubs, and drawings in her hand and in the hands of professional artists she admired, and those, too, she either threw away or put into a box. Marcia’s office reverted back to the anonymous — nothing on the desk but a computer and telephone, the walls blank, the divot-ridden corkboard bereft of all sign of her two thousand days among us. It was a swift and stultifying transformation, depressing to watch.

Genevieve Latko-Devine arrived in her doorway looking ashen and out of breath. “I just heard,” she said.

“Roland, you’re annoying me,” said Benny. “Do you really have to stand against the wall like that?”

“Sorry, Benny. It’s part of the new rules.”

The mood in the office was solemn and wistful until Jim Jackers showed up and asked Marcia if she was planning to return dressed as a clown to terrorize us all with a paintball gun. Any other day, Marcia would have shut him up with a quick put-down, but his inappropriateness could no longer touch her. What clung to us because of Jim no longer clung to her.

“I have been a total bitch for a year now,” she said, taking a seat for the last time in Ernie Kessler’s chair. “I hated everybody, you know why? Because I thought no way they deserved to stay on if I was going to be laid off. But all that time, I didn’t get laid off. I only got laid off today. I was thinking ahead, and hating everybody for it. Now I can finally stop being a bitch. You know how good that makes me feel? Why didn’t they do this a year ago?” she asked.

This was one of several possible responses — the silver-lining response. Marcia had found a spin clever enough to carry her out of the building with her head up. We had no desire to expose it for what it was, and so we all agreed it was a good thing that she could finally stop being a bitch. If Amber had been there, there would have been tears.

“Do you know that since layoffs began,” she continued, “I haven’t been able to enjoy a single cup of coffee at the coffee bar? I was always too worried someone might come along and see me and think I should be working and not at the coffee bar enjoying a cup of coffee. I can enjoy coffee again,” she said.

Not enjoying your coffee at the coffee bar was far better than no coffee bar at all. Twenty minutes earlier, Marcia herself would have said the same thing. Now a great distance had grown between us. She had fallen into the dark abyss, while the rest of us still stood at the brink, watching her plummet. Soon we would lose sight of her completely. It was tough to behold, but there she was — no longer one of us. An era was coming to an end. The era of browbeating, sarcasm, belittlement, and berating. The era of bad ballads from eighties hair bands issuing from her office. The era of conscience-riddled insults followed by profuse apologies to anyone but the insulted. We would not have Marcia’s new haircut to look forward to anymore. To be honest, we had already grown pretty much accustomed to it.

“Can I take these boxes home for you in my car?” asked Genevieve. “I’d be happy to drop them off.” We didn’t think Genevieve had a clue what she was asking. Genevieve lived in a gorgeous loft in Lincoln Park with her lawyer husband. Did she know how far Bridgeport was? Was she even aware there was a South Side?

“Why you?” Benny said to Marcia. “What bullshit. Why not Jim here?”

“Hey!” said Jim.

“Do you remember last week,” Marcia continued, with a conviction that would have impressed the biggest cynic, “when I ran into Chris Yop at the print station? And do you remember how worked up I was over having Tom Mota’s chair, with the wrong serial numbers? You guys told me to go in and replace Tom’s chair with Yop’s chair, that used to be Ernie’s chair, remember? Because it would be better to be caught with Ernie’s chair than to be caught with Tom’s? Do you remember that?” she asked. “Do you realize how insane we’ve all become?”

She got off the chair and stood before the partially filled boxes on her desk with her hands on her hips, wrists turned inward. She looked around a final time at what remained to be done and found there was nothing. “Wow,” she said.

“Are you ready?” asked Roland.

She didn’t even look at him. She didn’t look at us, either. She looked through us, to the dusty surfaces where her things had been, to the barren walls between which for six straight years she had completed the work that had earned her a living. Was this it, then? Was there to be no ceremony, beyond Roland’s aid out the door?

“I’ll help you down with those boxes,” said Benny.

“You know what?” she said. “Hold on.” She opened them up again and peered inside each one for a full minute or two. “I don’t want any of this shit,” she concluded at last. “Will you look at this? What is this?” She pulled out a cheap die-cast statuette of Lady Liberty. Next she held up a small book entitled 50 Tips for the Direct-Mail Marketer. “Roland,” she said, “can you just have these boxes thrown out for me?”

“Wait a minute, hold on,” said Benny.

“You don’t want your stuff?” said Roland.

“Marcia,” said Genevieve.

“It’s called useless shit, Roland,” said Benny. “And of course she wants it.”

It was madness to leave without your useless shit. You came in with it, you left with it — that was how it worked. What would you use to clutter a new office with if not your useless shit? We could remember Old Brizz with his box of useless shit, shifting the box from arm to arm as he talked with the building guy. Of course, Old Brizz never had an office again. His useless shit really was useless. He had cause to leave his useless shit behind. But his was a rare case. All things considered, it was better to take your useless shit with you.

“Marcia, take it with you,” said Benny.

“I’m happy to drive it over to your house tonight,” said Genevieve.

“But I don’t want any of it,” said Marcia.

It was how we knew to feel sorry for them. Before their terminations, we knew them by their tics, their whines, their crap superiorities, and just one day earlier, we thought that if all that were to disappear suddenly, so much the better. Then we saw them carrying a box full of useless shit to the elevator, and they were pitiable and human again.

But Marcia refused, and after hugs and good-byes walked toward the elevator with Roland, carrying nothing but that denim bag that served as her purse. She probably hadn’t even reached the lobby floor before Jim Jackers began to scavenge the useless shit she had left behind.

Nobody could believe Benny was just going to let Marcia leave without admitting he had a crush. He had promised himself he would and stupidly spread word of that promise to the rest of us, but every time the timing was right, he had a new excuse. The Monday after Tom’s spree, he was too busy accumulating conflicting versions of events and offering his own to tear himself away. That continued through Tuesday, and on Wednesday he claimed he was too busy working on the new business. On Thursday Joe told us Lynn was in the hospital, and we got wrapped up debating whether or not it was a good idea for us to visit her. But now it was Friday, and suddenly Marcia was leaving forever, and still Benny had said nothing. It was a mystery to us how he could be such a confident and lively raconteur and yet such a bashful lover. Jim came out of Marcia’s office holding the souvenir of the Statue of Liberty Marcia had disparaged on her way out, along with a shot glass and a copy of Vogue.

“Benny,” he said, “are you really going to let her leave without saying something to her?”

It happened all the time. Maybe someone had a legitimate gripe that deserved airing. Maybe someone had a compliment that shouldn’t go unspoken. No one said a thing. So long and stay in touch, that’s usually all we said. Take care of yourself, good luck. We said nothing about affection, appreciation, admiration. But neither did we say don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.

“She’s coming with us tomorrow to see Lynn, isn’t she?” he asked. “So I’ll see her tomorrow. I’ll say something then. What’s the big deal?”

But Saturday came and went, we paid our visit, and still he said nothing. The following Monday, Marcia showed up in the building lobby, as if taking a page out of Tom Mota’s book.

Roland was at the front desk and wouldn’t let her go up, not even as a visitor.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “After the incident, we can’t let former employees back in the building. You’re not even supposed to be in the lobby,” he said.

She convinced him to call Benny. “Send her up here!” Benny hollered at Roland into the phone. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I can’t do that, Benny,” Roland said helplessly as Marcia stared at him across the lobby post. “It’s against the new rules.”

“Well, then tell her to hold on,” Benny replied, standing up. “I’ll come down to her.”

He fixed up his corkscrew curls in the cloudy brass of the elevator. When he reached the lobby floor he sucked in his gut and stepped out with several others. It was lunchtime. People were coming and going through the revolving doors.

“Come on, man!” he said as he approached Roland. “Does she look like a threat to you?”

“It’s the new rules, Benny!”

“Don’t give him a hard time,” said Marcia. “He’s just doing his job.”

“What are you doing back here?” Benny asked.

She had returned, she said, in order to take apart Chris Yop’s chair, that used to be Ernie Kessler’s, so she could toss it piece by piece into the lake.

“Of course you have,” said Benny. “Let’s go outside and talk.”

Which is how it came to pass that we saw them conversing outside the building on our way to lunch. We spent that hour speculating on what Marcia was doing back at the office and what the two of them were discussing. Perhaps she liked him. Perhaps Roland, at his post in the lobby, was wondering the same thing, because despite the hard time Benny gave him about keeping Marcia in the lobby according to the new rules, we knew the two men were friends, and that Benny had talked to him just as he talked to the rest of us about his paralyzing and unrequited crush. “So what are you going to do about it, Benny?” he’d ask. “I’m going to tell her,” Benny announced at last, after Tom’s spree. “I promised myself I would and I will.” Maybe, thought Roland, that confession was happening right now, right outside the building. He returned his attention to his small amount of daily paperwork. When he looked up again ten minutes later to see how things were progressing, Benny and Marcia were gone.

ROLAND HAD APPEARED TO LOOK right at them as they walked past, but they were sheltered within a group of incoming lawyers from the firm below us and eventually he looked away again. They passed by freely, and after stepping off the elevator on sixty, walked together in the direction of Jim’s cubicle.

Marcia wanted Benny’s reassurance that Jim wasn’t there. Benny explained that he had sent Jim out to pick up sandwiches at the Potbelly, where the line was always atrocious.

“I’m telling you,” he said. “He won’t be back for hours.”

“If you tell anybody about this,” said Marcia, with a familiar, scolding, clawing tone. How he loved that tone!

“I wouldn’t be threatening me right now if I were you,” he said to her. “One call down to Roland and I could have you arrested.”

They made it down to Jim’s cube and Marcia set the envelope upright between two rows of keys on his keyboard before noticing the souvenir she had purchased during a visit with her family to the Statue of Liberty. “Hey, what’s this doing here?” she asked. Then she noticed that Jim also had her Fighting Illini shot glass, several magazines, and her Scorpio keychain, which listed the attributes of her personality. After his initial pillaging, he’d gone back for more. “What the fuck?” she said.

“Well,” replied Benny, sheepishly. “You did leave them behind.”

Jim wasn’t the only one with Marcia’s things. If she had stayed and scoured more workstations, she would have found them divvied up among us and scattered across the office. The only items we left behind were her unused tampons and marketing textbooks. Within two hours of her departure, her boxes had been picked clean. Don Blattner took her radio. Karen Woo swept down on her bookends. Someone of remarkable stealth stole in and took Chris Yop’s chair, which used to be Ernie’s, which Marcia had replaced with Tom Mota’s, which Chris Yop had tossed in the lake. Now someone else had the burden of possessing the wrong serial numbers but the pleasures of an ergonomic masterpiece.

“I don’t even feel like giving it to him now,” she said, reaching for the envelope.

“Don’t do that,” said Benny.

She left the envelope where it was.

Those of us who didn’t go to lunch that day saw them talking by the elevators. That was most of us, because of the pressing demands of the new business. We wondered the same thing those of us who’d gone to lunch wondered. After Marcia slipped past Roland on her way out — coming off a full elevator, ingeniously disguised as one of us — we all went down to Benny’s office and asked him what they had been talking about. He refused to say. “Never mind,” he said, dismissing us outright. We had to think that could only forebode bad news. Someone as loquacious as Benny Shassburger reduced to “Never mind”? No doubt that meant he had been rejected. We asked him a second time and a third. We came back fifteen minutes later and asked the same question in a different way. We sent him e-mails. “Never mind,” he wrote back. Not wanting to rub it in, we let it drop.

When he returned to his cube, after dropping Benny’s sandwich off, Jim puzzled over the white envelope on his keyboard. On the cover of the card, a cheap generic Hallmark item made of recycled paper, a hound dog’s fat snout and heavy ears rested on a pair of crisscrossed paws, while his blubbery furry body floated in a background of blue. Above his cocked and woeful head, a cumulus-shaped thought bubble announced, “I feel so blue. .” And on the inside, “For the way I treated you.” There was no note, no revisiting specific slights. Only her name to inform him who had left it. Marcia. It was scrawled reluctantly. He pinned the card to his cube wall.

TOM WAS BEING HELD TEMPORARILY in a central holding cell near the city courthouse. At his initial hearing, his bail was set at twenty thousand dollars, which some of us thought was a little much, and others considered much too little. In the end it didn’t matter because no one would post it for him, and he didn’t want to part with any of the little money he had saved from the sale of his Naperville house. Or so he told Joe Pope, who went to visit him. Tom labored under idiosyncratic and stubborn notions, but even he must have known that the court costs, lawyers’ fees, and criminal fines that he’d have to pay for pulling his little stunt were going to tap him dry forever. We had no doubt that his inclination to stick around the jail cell was influenced by the fact that he had been processed on a Friday, and that by posting bail, he’d have nothing but another aimless weekend to muddle his way through, getting drunk and harassing the groundskeepers of his apartment complex, and composing e-mails to people who never wrote him back. So he decided to stick around and have a few hot meals on the state until his arraignment, when he would be charged with five counts of aggravated assault and battery, destruction of private property, and trespassing.

When we heard Joe Pope went to visit him, we were beside ourselves with disbelief. We were surprised, confused, angry, curious, tickled, and dumbfounded. It took everything in us not to dismiss the rumor as an absurd invention. But no, it was true, Joe himself admitted it before commencing a meeting in the Michigan Room. We were there to discuss details of the caffeinated bottled water, and everyone was fearful of a long night. Comparing conflicting accounts and trying to win the new business at the same time was taking it out of us. It would only prolong things to talk about anything but the work, but we couldn’t help ourselves, and someone asked Joe as he walked in if it was really true. Had he become Tom Mota’s prison wife?

Joe smiled. He set down his leather day planner and pulled out a seat at the head of the conference room table.

“No, seriously,” said Benny. “Did you go visit him?”

“I did.”

“How come?”

Joe sat down and scooted in. “I was curious,” he said.

“Curious about what?”

Joe looked around the room. We were quiet. “Do you remember what he said to me?” he asked us. “He was standing in the hallway, holding the gun, which I thought was real at the time. And he says, remember what he said? He said, ‘Joe, I came to take you to lunch.’”

Some of us recalled hearing Tom say that and some of us were hearing it for the first time. What we remembered most clearly was Tom unfurling some lunatic gibberish as he wheeled and aimed and pulled the trigger — crazy talk that announced we were in the hands of a madman.

“No, after all that,” said Joe. “The last thing he said before Andy tackled him.”

“I don’t remember him saying he wanted to take you to lunch,” said Larry Novotny.

“Maybe because at the time, Larry,” said Karen Woo, “you were cowering with Amber in the server closet.”

According to Joe, Tom said it so calmly and matter-of-factly that it was almost as shocking as finding him there at all. Or rather, it was the juxtaposition between what he said — “I’ve come to take you to lunch” — and what he was doing — dressed as a clown and holding a gun — that was so odd. What did it mean? he wondered. Was it a euphemism? Did Tom actually intend to kill him and that was his clever way of saying it? If so, why did he point the gun at the ground just as he said it? Joe did not yet know it was a paintball gun. When he found that out, it seemed Tom might have legitimately wanted to take him to lunch.

“Where do you think he wanted to take you?” asked Jim Jackers.

“The Sherwin-Williams café,” quipped Benny.

“Jim,” said Karen, shaking her head across the table at him, “where he wanted to take him is not the point.”

“After he was arrested,” Joe continued, “Carl came to my office and showed me an e-mail Tom had sent him. It said that Tom was stopping by the office that day because he wanted to talk to me. I went to see him because I was curious. What did he want to talk about?”

“And what was it?” asked Benny.

“Ralph Waldo Emerson,” said Joe.

“Ralph Waldo Emerson?”

“Is he the guy with the pond?” asked Jim.

“You’re thinking of Henry David Thoreau,” said Hank.

“Jim is thinking of the Budweiser frogs,” said Karen.

We recalled the book Tom had purchased for Carl Garbedian, and what he had said to Benny on the day he was terminated. Tom Mota, ladies and gentlemen — martini addict, gonzo e-mailer, sometime wielder of an aluminum bat, great garden enthusiast, paintball terrorist, and our own in-house Emerson scholar. He had the annoying tic during his time with us of pinning aphorisms to the wall. We liked nothing less than people quoting at us from their corkboards. Hank Neary was the only one who could quote at us with impunity because he rarely made any sense, so we knew the quotation must add up somehow and we marveled at the obscurity. Quotations that tried to instruct us or rehabilitate our ways, like those Tom favored — we didn’t like those quotations. We were especially put off by Tom’s because it seemed a great irony that Tom Mota was trying to reveal to us a better way to live, when just look at the guy! What a fuckup. His quotations were never allowed to stay pinned up for very long. It would take him days to notice and then he would holler out into the hall, in his inimitable and eloquent manner, “Who the fuck’s been stealing my quotes?”

He and Joe were sequestered in a small, windowless room. We expected something different: a booth, some bulletproof glass, a pair of red phones. But according to Joe it was a room no bigger than the average office on sixty. It was almost possible to imagine their unlikely conversation unfolding where conversations always unfolded for us, only this time, the door locked from the inside, and Tom wasn’t allowed any thumbtacks with which to pin up his ludicrous and heartfelt quotations. Joe was sitting at the table when Tom was escorted in by two guards. He was wearing a tan jumpsuit with D.O.C. stenciled on the back, and he was shackled with handcuffs. The guards told them they had fifteen minutes.

“Being treated okay, Tom?”

“How are those fucks?” asked Tom. “Recovering?”

Joe gave Tom the general rundown of events after he was arrested. Tom said he was happy we got Friday afternoon off. They talked about Tom’s situation, what his lawyers were saying they could do for him if he pled guilty and acted penitent. Then Joe asked him what he had come there to ask him.

“I just said, ‘What did you want to talk to me about that day, Tom?’” Joe said to us. “And finally he admitted that he was the one who had Sharpied FAG on my wall.”

“No shit,” said Benny.

“I thought you did that to yourself,” said Jim Jackers.

“No,” said Joe.

“Jim, think about it,” said Karen. “Why would Joe do that to his own office? God.”

“I can’t tell you how many times I asked him, Joe,” said Benny. “I said, ‘Tom, come on, man, tell me the truth. Did you do that to Joe’s wall?’ Every time he denied it.”

Tom tried to explain himself. “I refused to conform,” he said to Joe. “When somebody said something stupid, everybody smiled and simpered and shook their heads. But me, I told them it was stupid. Everyone listened to the same goddamn radio station. Fuck that. I stayed late and went by everybody’s desk and spun the dial. I wore three polos on top of each other for a month, Joe, because I wasn’t being fooled and I wanted people to know it. I learned all that from reading Emerson. To conform is to lose your soul. So I dissented every chance I got and I told them fuck you and eventually they fired me for it, but I thought, Ralph Waldo Emerson would be proud of Tom Mota.”

Genevieve spoke up from down the conference room table. “He’s pleased with himself?”

“No, he’s not pleased with himself,” said Joe. “Hang on.”

“But what I didn’t know for a long time, Joe,” Tom had continued, “was that I was down here.” Joe demonstrated in order to explain what Tom meant. Tom had rattled his handcuffs in a sudden vortex whipped up by his spinning hands, which hovered just above the table. “Down here, resenting everything. The rut I was in. My never-enough salary. The people. I stormed around. I poked my nose into everyone’s business. When there was an insult to be made, I made it. When I could disparage someone, I took the opportunity. I Sharpied FAG on your wall. And I thought, it’s because I refuse to conform. If they don’t like it, they can fire me, because I can’t live like everybody else. But then you walked in and found what I’d written, Joe, and what did you do? Do you remember?”

“I couldn’t remember exactly,” Joe said to us. “I remember I called Mike Boroshansky and told him that someone had vandalized my office. But that wasn’t what Tom meant. After that, he said. After the official notification and all that. Did I remember what I did then? And I told him I couldn’t remember specifically.”

“You left it up there,” said Tom. “You left it up there. The building people and the office coordinator, who knows what those fucks had going on, but whatever it was, it must have had them by the balls, because it wasn’t until the following day — don’t you remember? — that they got around to removing it.”

We asked Joe if that was right. Did it really take them until the following day to remove FAG from his wall?

“Maybe,” he replied. “I remember it took them a while. But to be honest, I’m just going on what Tom told me.”

“I’m telling you,” said Tom, “it wasn’t until the next day. Whenever I’d walk by, the first thing I’d do is look in at you. I expected to see you all up in arms, screaming into the phone at someone about why it was still up there. But what did I find you doing instead? You were working. You were. . I don’t know what. If it had been me, I’d have been hollering at someone every five minutes until they came with a goddamn can of paint and covered over that fucker, because who likes to be called a fag? But you? You didn’t care. It couldn’t touch you. Because you’re up here, Joe,” said Tom.

Joe demonstrated once again. Tom had lifted one of his manacled hands as high as it would go to demonstrate where he thought Joe was, the second hand having no choice but to follow.

“I thought I was up there, but no, that whole time, I was down here, with everybody else — churning, spinning, talking, lying, circling, whipping myself up into a frenzy. I was doing everything they were doing, just in my own way. But you,” he said, “you stay here, Joe. You’re up here.” His hand delineated Joe’s place with such vigor it made the second hand jerk back and forth.

“I tried to tell him that wasn’t necessarily true,” said Joe. “I could be way down here for all he knew,” he said, bending his chin down to the conference room table so he could touch the floor. “But Tom had made up his mind. I was up here.” Joe extended his arm in the air once more.

“I thought I was the one living right,” said Tom. “I was the one saying fuck you to the miseries of office life. Nobody could resist conforming in the corporate setting, but I managed it. Making it a point every day to show how different I was from everybody else. Proving I was better, smarter, funnier. Then I saw you sitting side by side with the word FAG on the wall — working — at peace — and I knew — you were the one. Not me. I used to think it was just because you were arrogant. But then I knew it wasn’t arrogance. It was just your nature. And I hated you for it. You had it, and I didn’t, and I hated you.”

We asked Joe if he had really been at peace the day he found FAG on his wall.

“At peace?” he said. “I’m not sure that describes it. Tom thinks he knows me, but he doesn’t. And I tried to tell him that, I said, ‘Tom, finding my office vandalized like that, you have no idea how that made me feel. Maybe I was mortified. Maybe I wanted to kill myself. Maybe I went into the bathroom and cried. Don’t assume you know.’ But he wouldn’t listen.”

“Did you cry, Joe?” asked Jim.

“Jim, he’s not going to tell us if he cried,” said Karen.

“I didn’t cry,” said Joe.

“I know you didn’t cry, Joe,” said Tom. “Because you weren’t bothered. And I had no choice but to respect you for it, even though I hated you. I still hated you the day they let me go, and probably the day after, but on the third day, it disappeared, all of it. . just. . poof, I don’t know why. Probably because I wasn’t working there anymore. I had distance, suddenly. And what I was left feeling toward you was admiration. More than admiration. It was love —”

We couldn’t help it, it was so absurd, Tom saying that he loved Joe — we just cracked up.

“Don’t laugh,” said Joe sternly. “You wanted to hear it. Let me finish.”

The table got quiet again.

“I had wanted to smash your face in,” said Tom. “I couldn’t stomach the sight of you. I wanted to apologize for that. That’s why I wanted to take you to lunch,” he said. “I really did want to take you to lunch. But as that fuck so eloquently puts it, ‘Character teaches above our wills.’ And before I knew it, I had the paintball gun thing all worked out in my head and I just couldn’t stop myself.”

The two guards came into the room just then and announced that Joe’s time was up. He looked at his watch and couldn’t believe that fifteen minutes had passed. Joe stood, but the guard immediately told him to sit down again. “There was a whole procedure to it,” he explained to us. “Tom would be led out by the first guard, and I would be led out by the second one. I had to remain seated until Tom was out of sight.”

“Thanks for coming, Joe,” Tom said, as the guard approached and took his arm. “I appreciate it.”

“Is there anything I can do for you, Tom?”

“Yeah.” Tom raised his manacled hands abruptly. “Stay up here, you fuck,” he said.

Immediately the guard reacted and Tom put his hands back down.

With that, Joe began to pass handouts around the table. “Like I said,” he added, not looking at any of us. “Tom Mota thinks he knows me, but he doesn’t. Not really.”

We each took a handout.

“Okay,” he said. He straightened in his chair, and the meeting began.

OUR VISIT TO LYNN in the hospital was a rough twenty minutes. We shared oblique glances and sweaty palms and the crippling fear of pauses in the conversation. There was no easy breathing from the moment we arrived. She was sitting up in her hospital bed, swimming in her blue cotton gown, a plastic ID bracelet around her child’s wrist. It was a well-known phenomenon that she was a small woman physically who loomed in our imaginations as a towering and indomitable giant. She looked even smaller now, lost in all the blankets and pillows of the hospital bed, and her arms, which we had never seen so much of before, looked as undefined and reedy as a little girl’s.

We had nothing in common with the dying and so never knew what to say to them. Our presence seemed a vague and threatening insult, something that could easily spill over into cruel laughter, and so we chose our words carefully and moved with caution gathering around the bed and restricted our jokes and bantering. It would not be appropriate to storm in and be our full flush selves, encouraging her with loud voices to return to us because, just beneath the spoken words, the real truth ran fast as a current: she may never be one of us again. So we minced and pussyfooted and swallowed our words, mumbled and deflected and softened our voices, and she saw right through it. “Come in,” she said when we first arrived. “Get in here. What are you all being so shy for?” One after the other we filed in. Her hair was back in a ponytail, she wasn’t wearing any makeup, and there was no sign of a single pair of designer shoes. She had just undergone a grievous surgery and was suffering from unspecified complications. Yet she still generated the greatest energy in the room. It was a private room about the size of her office and so it felt a little like entering that enervating space to receive dreaded news about some irrevocable and costly error we had committed at the agency’s expense. We greeted her. We presented her with flowers. “Will you look at all your funeral faces,” she said, looking toward the foot of the bed, and to the right of her and to the left. “You’d think I was dead already. Would it have killed you to practice your expression in the mirror before coming in here, Benny?” Benny smiled and apologized. She looked next at Genevieve. “And you,” she said. “Did you have a conversation with my doctors I should know about?” Genevieve also smiled and shook her head. “Well, so what’s next, then?” she asked. “A reading from the Bible?” We tried to explain that we had been ambivalent about coming. We thought maybe she would have preferred her privacy. “I would have preferred never to have stepped foot in this dreary hell,” she said. “But if I have to be here, it’s nice to see some familiar faces. But somebody start acting like a jackass or I’ll hardly know you.”

“I do a mean imitation of James Brown doing an imitation of Clint Eastwood,” offered Benny. “Want to see it?”

“I can’t picture that,” said Lynn.

“Believe it or not, it’s true,” said Jim.

So Benny did his imitation of James Brown doing Clint Eastwood, which defied description to anyone who hadn’t seen it, but had us laughing within a few seconds, and that finally broke the ice.

We talked about Tom Mota and the incident, and Joe told of seeing him in jail. And we talked about Carl’s resignation, which came as a surprise to Lynn. “You’re leaving us, Carl?” “I am,” he said. “Well, I think that is terrific news,” Lynn said. We were shocked to hear how in favor she was of Carl’s departure until she elaborated. “Advertising isn’t your thing,” she explained. “It doesn’t make you happy.” Carl agreed and told her of his ambitions for Garbedian and Son. She said the same thing we said: “Good for you, Carl.” Though she was probably thinking, Who wants to be twirling a weedwhacker around a subdivision in the middle of a heatstroke summer? Give me my chair over that any day of the week. Oh, what I’d give to be back in my chair — she was probably thinking that, too.

After a while we could tell she was starting to flag, so we told her we’d better let her get some sleep. But first Jim Jackers had a presentation to make.

We thought it was a terrible idea from the very beginning. Lynn had asked us to do a pro bono project for a breast cancer awareness fund-raiser, claiming to know some committee chair who had pestered her. The next day, the project morphs from a fund-raiser into a public service announcement, with the baffling mandate to inspire laughter in the breast cancer patient. What happened to the fund-raiser? No one knows. Is there really a pestering committee chair? No word on that, either. Just Joe Pope instructing us on the changes. We say okay, whatever. We get down to work. We read books, we do research. We come up with squat. We file into Lynn’s office at the eleventh hour — she’s forgotten about it entirely. We unload the “Loved Ones” campaign on the “client.” The project ends. Tom comes in and shoots us with paintballs.

But then we found out Lynn did in fact have cancer. When that came to light, Jim Jackers suggested we revive the ads we failed at so miserably and present them to her in the hospital, in order to cheer her up.

“Because what if she did make up that assignment?” he asked. “Don’t you think she’d like to see those ads more than ever, now that she’s actually in the hospital?”

“Don’t be an idiot, Jim,” said Karen Woo. “Of course she didn’t make up that assignment.”

“Well, that’s a different tune you’re singing all of a sudden, Karen.”

“Oh, Jim, don’t be so dense.”

“How am I being dense?” he asked. “I’m just saying — what if?”

He claimed to have a concept. We thought he must have reconciled with his uncle. “No, I came up with this on my own,” he said. When we heard that, we let out a collective groan. Jim’s original concepts were usually worse than Chris Yop’s.

“But it’s really not a bad concept,” Benny said to us. “I think she’d get a big kick out of it.”

We asked him to explain the concept to us, but Jim had sworn him to secrecy until they talked to Joe. They went in, and Joe purportedly said, “I couldn’t have come up with this. Whose idea was this?”

“Jim’s,” said Benny.

After they got out of their meeting, we asked Benny if Jim had been reconciled with his uncle.

“You guys already asked me that,” Jim cut in. “I told you I came up with these ads on my own.” He showed us one. We thought it was derivative, full of borrowed interest, and rather unoriginal. “But that’s the whole point,” Jim argued. “That’s what makes them original.” We had to agree to disagree, and immediately began devising ways of escaping before Jim unveiled them.

But it was hard to distance ourselves from him inside Lynn’s hospital room when he announced that “we” had a presentation for her. Lynn herself looked at him from her ocean of bed with an expression somewhere between surprise and skepticism. We all held our breath for fear of what inappropriate preamble might escape Jim’s mouth. He reminded her of what the pro bono project had once asked of us — to present the breast cancer patient with something funny in her hour of need. For the first time in his life, he didn’t call it the “pro boner” project.

“And so without further ado,” he said, with embarrassing grandiosity, as he unzipped the black portfolio and pulled out the first ad. What choice did we have but to stick around?

From the foot of her bed, he held the ad high so everyone could see. Each concept had been glued to black mount board with two-inch borders, which made the thing really pop. “As you can see,” he said, “this visual shows the familiar sight of a laminated placard you might see hanging in a hospital or a gynecologist’s office, of the featureless female form giving herself a breast exam. One arm is raised in the air and bent at the elbow, while the hand of the other arm probes her left breast.” Somebody snickered. Jim paused, evidently irritated. “Juxtaposed with this image,” he continued, “is the famous ‘Miss Clairol’ headline. ‘Does she. . or doesn’t she?’ And our subhead reads, ‘A tumor so small only her oncologist knows for sure!’”

We watched Lynn’s face for some sort of reaction. “Let me have a closer look,” she said. Jim handed the ad to her. She took it and we felt no different than we did when sitting in her office waiting for her to assess and judge and deliver her verdict on real ads.

“This is funny,” she said.

“But you’re not laughing,” said Jim.

“I never laugh, Jim,” she replied. Which was true, she never laughed. She only said, “This is funny.” And then you knew she liked it.

“Here’s the next one,” he said, pulling the second ad from the portfolio and holding it before her. “You recognize this famous shot,” he began, “of a man dressed all in black, gripping the armrests of a black leather armchair while the speaker in front of him is blowing back his hair, his tie, his martini glass, and the lampshade next to him. It’s from the old Maxell tape ad. Except in ours, the stereo speaker has been replaced by the profile of a giant breast emerging from the margin on the left, which we scanned from an old Playboy of Benny’s. The headline reads, ‘No Other Disease Delivers Higher Recovery Rates.’ The word Maxell has been replaced with the word Mammary in the bottom right-hand corner, and the small print reads, ‘Get blown away by your fast recovery.’ This,” Jim concluded, “combines a little humor with a little hope.”

“Let me see it, Jim,” she said. We watched her reaction. “I like it,” she said, tapping it. Which was enthusiasm we hadn’t seen or heard since Joe and Genevieve unveiled Cold Sore Guy.

“This next one,” said Jim, “shows the extreme close-up of a man in a surgical mask and scrubs, holding up near his face a scalpel and a pair of operating scissors. It’s an unfamiliar image, but in the upper right-hand corner we’ve placed a subtle Nike Swoosh,” said Jim, pointing to it, “and running across the bottom of the page is the famous ‘Just Do It’ tagline. The subhead reads, ‘Go Ahead and Cut.’ And I’ll read you the body copy,” said Jim. “‘Triathletes. Channel swimmers. Hikers of Everest. Compared to the woman facing breast cancer surgery, those clowns don’t have a clue about perseverance and courage. Talk to someone who’s faced down this guy. She knows what hard work is all about. She knows the definition of winning. Survival, baby. Just Do It.’”

There were several more — the “Got Cancer?” ad, the “Absolut Ether” ad, in which a hand with long painted fingernails grips the neck of a half-empty vodka bottle like a claw. Jim handed them all across the bed and she got very close to each one, inspecting and reading them. When she got to the Absolut ad, she offered us a genuine smile.

She continued to smile as she thanked us. We said our good-byes. We told her to feel better. Out in the hallway, we encountered more nurses and medical equipment. We said we thought she liked them. We asked Joe if he agreed. We said we nailed it, didn’t we, Joe? Didn’t we nail it? We walked together down the hall. We were a full car heading down the elevator.

“Do you really think she liked those ads, Joe?” asked Marcia. “Or do you think she was smiling because of how atrocious they were?”

“Hey!” cried Jim.

“Sorry, Jim, nothing personal. I just happen to think they’re atrocious,” she said. “It’s not your fault, you did better than any of us. I’m just saying it was an impossible assignment.”

We grew introspective and quiet for the remainder of the ride. When we reached the lobby floor, there was a delay before the doors opened, and that’s when Genevieve broke the silence.

“Maybe she wasn’t smiling because of the ads,” she said. “Maybe she was smiling because of us. What we did.”

“Because it was a nice gesture,” said Marcia.

“Or maybe,” said Jim, with uncharacteristic conviction, “you guys just don’t know anything about advertising.”

WHEN, A FEW WEEKS LATER, they let go of Jim Jackers, we said they lifted him off his seat by the middle belt loop of his jeans and threw him from the building. We said he went flying three stairs at a time until he landed on the curb, where he picked himself up and checked his forehead for blood. After that, we said, he collected his useless shit, which had spilled everywhere during his propeller dive at the sidewalk. Jim was not one to leave without a box.

When next they came for Amber, a few weeks after that, we said she was tossed into the streetlamp outside the building without any concern for her unborn baby. We had just come back from lunch at T.G.I. Friday’s when she got the news. It was at that lunch we presented her with things we had bought for the baby — a diaper bag, a stroller — all of which was tossed out with her. She lay trying to recover, head spinning, on the wet cement in a light summer rain. We said people walking past stared down at the spectacle and refused to help, and we imagined the bum with the Dunkin Donuts cup bending down to the stroller, opening it up, and rolling it away with him.

We said Don Blattner was thrown headfirst into the window of a parked taxi with such force he wheeled around 180 degrees, rolled his eyes a couple of times, and slumped down between the car and the curb. He settled, head hanging down like a heavy melon, and appeared to all passersby like a drunk sleeping off a bender. We said the movie stills that had adorned his office walls were taken down and flung at his drooping head. Most of them just hit the car and shattered, but a few landed, and the cuts began to bleed. More movie memorabilia — action figures, back issues of Vanity Fair — was dumped on his prone body. Eventually, we said, Don was carted off by city officials.

It was all fun and games after they were gone. Easier to make cartoons of them than to wonder for any amount of time how Amber was going to find a new job before the baby came, or how unjust they were to let go of her while keeping Larry on. Easier to joke than to feel sorry for Jim, who had been everyone’s whipping boy for so long that we had nothing left after his departure but loathsome memories of our bullying and cruel remarks. None of us cared to revisit the fun we’d made of him for fear our laughter might now stick in our throats.

In reality, when we heard Jim was let go we went down to his cubicle, miserable with happiness that he had been chosen over us. Everyone who had spoken ill of him at one time or another was there to offer him condolences. Jim’s reaction was magnanimous and pathetic at once. When people extended their hands and told him how sorry they were, he nodded and smiled and said, “Thanks,” as if he had just been named Employee of the Month. He almost seemed to be enjoying himself, which was curious but later made sense, because it was probably the only time during his entire tenure that so many people had approached him with a universal consensus of support instead of with ridicule or scorn. He didn’t point out the hypocrisy or seek to settle scores. He soaked up the attention with an indulgence he deserved, stretching out his allotted half hour to forty-five minutes until Roland, who was standing against the wall as he had done with Marcia, finally told Jim he really had to be out of the building. So Jim said his final good-byes and shook a few hands and left with his box, never to return.

It was different with Benny. Earnings were down across the board. Stock prices were in free fall. We were just about to awaken from a decade of unadulterated dreaming. Benny had to call his father to come with a car, he had so much useless shit in his office.

“Roland,” he said, “have a seat. This may take a while.”

“You know I gotta stand, Benny.”

“What do they think I’m going to do, Roland? Stab you with a highlighter?”

“They can’t take any chances since the incident,” Roland tried to explain for the hundredth time. “I’m not even supposed to be conversing.”

“I bet I can make you converse.”

Soon Benny and Roland were conversing about whether or not Benny could make Roland converse, until Roland, catching himself in Benny’s trap, said, “Please, Benny, I’m just trying to do my job.”

“Come on, man,” said Benny. “I thought you and me were friends?”

“You think this is easy for me?” asked the older man.

When at last Benny’s father arrived, it took the three men four trips down the freight elevator. Benny had so much stuff in his office it was like he was moving out of an apartment. If a general sadness overtook us when Marcia and Amber and Jim were let go, a veritable pall cast itself about the hallways during Benny’s last hour. Who would regale us with stories now? Into whose office would we go to confide, to gossip, to horse around? And who, what with Paulette Singletary gone, too, could we point to now and agree that there was the one person who stood head and shoulders above the rest? Garrulousness and a natural amiability — that was the nature of heroism in the confines we shared during that more innocent time, and when they took Benny, they took away our hero.

After that we fell into even greater recrimination and bickering. Needless to say, the caffeinated water people went with a different firm, and the running shoe people ended up staying with their original agency. Without any new business things got worse. What little work remained was never any fun. All that summer no one took advantage of the city or the proximity of the lake for an aimless stroll during a lunch hour because we were too rabid with speculation about how dire things had become and who would be the next to go. We could enjoy nothing but our own dull rumoring. Conversation never extended beyond our walls, walls that were closing in on us, and we failed to take stock of anything happening beyond them. One topic — that was all we knew, and it tyrannized every conversation. We fell into it helplessly, the way jilted lovers know only one subject, the way true bores never transcend the sorry limitations of their own lives. It was a shrill, carping, frenzied time, and as poisonous an atmosphere as anyone had ever known — and we wanted nothing more than to stay in it forever. In the last week of August 2001, and in the first ten days of that September, there were more layoffs than in all the months preceding them. But by the grace of god, the rest of us hung on, hating each other more than we ever thought possible. Then we came to the end of another bright and tranquil summer.

5

FIVE YEARS LATER — WHO’S HANK? — THE DAY OF THE GODFATHER — THE MONTAGUES AND THE CAPULETS — JIM GOES TO A MEETING — FOR US IT WAS NEVER A WORRY — HANK’S READING — HANDLEBAR HARRY — TO LYNN, AND LATER, TO TOM — THE REFORMED LAMA — IN THE END

IN THE SUMMER OF 2006, Benny Shassburger received an e-mail from someone he couldn’t place. The name was familiar, he knew he should know it, but the longer he stared at it the more it eluded him. He said the name aloud. His cubicle neighbor, a lank, annoying person who never let anything go by without making inquiries, popped his sandy groundhog’s head over the cube wall and said, “What’d you say?” Benny hardly had the energy to explain. “I’m just talking to myself,” he said. Ian replied that there was a new study claiming that whenever anyone said something out loud and then someone else asked, “What did you say?” and that person responded that he was just talking to himself, that that person wasn’t just talking to himself, but in fact was most likely addressing someone specific, even if only subconsciously. Ian kept abreast of all the new studies. Benny felt tired.

Where had we located the energy? Updating our resumes, interviewing again, learning a new commute route. We had spread out across the industry, finding work at other agencies, at design firms and in-house marketing departments, usually the first place that would have us. The less fortunate or talented among us went to direct-mail shops or turned to the temp agencies for uninsured day jobs. The floor plans, the shapes of the desks, the names of the people, and the colors of the corporate logos were all new and different, but the song and dance remained the same. We were delighted to have jobs. We bitched about them constantly. We walked around our new offices with our two minds. All those new faces and names to memorize, the strange coffee pots and unfamiliar toilet seats. We had new W-4s to fill out and never knew if it was zero or one that would give us more money back. HR was there to assist, but they were never as good as our old HR. We spent the first two or three weeks, and some of us more like a month or two, in isolation and anonymity. For an unbearable spell, lunch was a solitary affair. Only slowly did we get folded into the mix, only slowly did the new political realities start to dawn. Who was wrangling and for what, who was crass, arrogant, stupid, powerful, fake, prepossessing, double-crossing, or a good person all around — all this began to shake out. But it didn’t happen overnight. It took weeks, it took months, and that we mustered up the oomph to start over again at new agencies was a testament to our tenacity. It was a sign that buried beneath all the bitching, there were parts of the job we loved. It was proof we needed the money.

“You know I’m a friendly guy,” Benny said into the phone, peering over the cube wall to be sure Ian hadn’t returned. “But I don’t know how much more I can take. I’m telling you, this guy Ian? He’s destroying my core personality.”

Some had adjusted better than others. There was freedom in starting over because nobody knew yet if you were crass, arrogant, stupid, powerful, fake, prepossessing, double-crossing, or a good person all around. You could reinvent yourself. Wasn’t that part of the promise of America? A few blissful months passed in which pigeonholing was impossible. Lessons learned from past mistakes held us in good stead. Some of us displayed a rapid growth in political savvy. Others wondered what happened. “I used to be such a mensch,” Benny continued. “Remember? People used to come into my office and I would regale them with stories. With the exception of maybe Paulette Singletary, I was the person everybody loved the most. What happened?”

“Why don’t you come down to my office and let’s talk about it,” Jim said to him.

When Benny arrived, there he was. Jim Jackers. Composing an e-mail. If the expression on Jim’s face was any indication, thought Benny, the fate of the entire agency depended on that one e-mail. Benny took a seat across from him and waited. He disliked being on this side of the desk. He wanted to be on that side. Jim’s side.

“Okay, listen,” said Jim, once he had finished composing the all-important e-mail. “You’re next in line for an office, okay? You just have to be patient.”

“How do you know I’m next?” asked Benny.

“I’ll take care of it, don’t worry. But you gotta wait until somebody vacates. We can’t just kick somebody out of an office they’re already in and send them to a cube.”

“I was kicked out of an office and sent to a cube.”

“Because you lost your job,” said Jim.

“A technicality,” Benny replied. He sat back in his chair. “Don’t get me wrong, Jim. I’m eternally grateful to you for hiring me. I’ve been doing freelance too long. But a small agency doesn’t suit me the way it suits you. I can’t look at the same thirty people over and over again every day. I need multiple floors. I’ve learned this about myself. I’m a creature whose natural habitat is multiple floors. And I need an office. I miss my old office. I miss the people. You know who I miss? I’ll tell you who I miss,” he said. “I miss Old Brizz.”

“How can you miss Old Brizz?” asked Jim. “You never really knew him. If you miss him at all, it’s because he was old and he died and nobody here currently occupying an office fits that description.”

“Jim, you have turned into a cynical man,” Benny said. “I blame the corrupting influence of power. I miss Old Brizz because I got ten bucks a pop from all you Charlton Heston hopefuls when poor Old Brizz kicked off.” He got closer to Jim across the desk and lowered his voice. “What I miss, Jim, is Celebrity Death Watch. I can’t even get a Super Bowl pool going on around here. What is wrong with these people? I’m not clicking and it’s driving me crazy. I miss clicking. Speaking of which,” he said, sitting back. “Who’s Hank Neary?”

Jim’s attention was seized by the sound of the name. “Hank Neary,” he said. “Hank Neary.” Furrowing his brow and looking away, he slowly, methodically incanted the name as a word absent of all meaning. “Hank,” he said. “Hank. Hank.”

“We worked with him, right?”

“Hank Neary,” said Jim. “Hank Neary.”

“Didn’t we work with him, Jimmy? At the old agency?”

“Hold on. Give me a minute,” said Jim. “We worked with him.”

“Neary,” said Benny, slitting his eyes at Jim. “Hank Neary.”

“Hank Neary,” said Jim. “It’s escaping me.”

“My memory,” said Benny, shaking his head.

“Mine, too. You know what? Call Marcia. She’ll know.”

Benny shook his head. “Can’t call Marcia right now,” he replied. “Marcia’s mad at me.”

“What’s she mad at you for?”

“Jim, have I got a story to tell you,” he exclaimed. “I’ve got the best story you’ve ever heard. Hold on a second while I get more coffee.”

“No, Benny —”

“What?”

“I got a meeting in ten minutes.”

“Oh.”

“Well, don’t get defeated,” said Jim, seeing Benny’s disappointment. “I still got ten minutes.”

“All right, I’ll do without the coffee. But do me a favor,” said Benny. “Let me sit in your chair while I tell it.”

“Are you serious?”

Benny got up. Jim got up reluctantly and they switched places. Benny smiled. He was on the right side of the desk again. He could look out into the hall and see all the people passing by and call them in.

“Michael!” he hollered out into the hall. “Michael, get in here and listen to my story. It’s a terrific story, you’ll love it.”

Michael barely paused to stick his head inside Jim’s office. “Can’t,” he said. “I’m on deadline with this newsletter.”

He quickly departed, and Benny held up his hands to demonstrate his disbelief. “Do you see that?” he asked. “Do you see now, Jim, what I’m talking about? There’s something wrong with these people.”

“Benny, he’s on deadline.”

“Who doesn’t have ten minutes to hear a good story?”

“Benny. Tell me the story.”

So Benny told Jim the story of why Marcia was mad at him. Since becoming employed full-time again, he had grown aware of a phenomenon that seemed to happen only at work, or at least happened with more frequency at work than other places in life, and the phenomenon was this: one person would say something and the person listening would have positively no idea what he or she meant, but not wanting to appear rude, or worse, stupid, or alternatively, not caring to waste any more time, it was easier just to nod or laugh along than it was to pause and inquire what that person really meant. This was especially true with hallway banter and kitchen talk and other types of inconsequential daily exchanges. People were indifferent to what was said, or were preoccupied by other things, or had long ago concluded that what passed for speech during the course of a workday was mostly the babble of idiots. “So I thought, Would it make a difference, really? Would it honestly make a difference if instead of replying the way I would normally, I answered everybody with quotes from The Godfather?”

Jim was curious. “How would you manage that?” he said.

Benny explained that he gave himself a simple rule: nothing could come from his mouth that had not come first from the mouths of Michael, Sonny, Fredo, Tom Hagen, or the Don himself — or anybody at all in the first two films.

“Why only the first two?” asked Jim.

“Come on, Jim,” said Benny. “You know why. Do we have to call Don Blattner?”

“Because the third one sucks?”

“Boy, I miss that old Don Blattner,” said Benny.

At the conclusion of a morning meeting, during which he had remained perfectly silent, as everyone was packing up their things, Benny had turned to Heidi Savoca and said, “‘I spent my whole life trying not to be careless. Women and children can be careless, but not men.’” Heidi’s expression indicated she didn’t know where Benny’s comment was coming from, but more pressing than her confusion was her distaste for the remark itself. “That’s a very sexist thing to say, Benny,” she replied. Later that morning, Seth Keegan stopped by Benny’s cube to ask him a question about some revisions for a project the two had been working on over the course of the previous few weeks. “Do you have a minute?” Seth asked Benny. Benny swiveled in his chair. “‘This one time,’” he said. “‘This one time I’ll let you ask me about my affairs.’” “Cool,” said Seth, who entered the cubicle more fully. “I’m wondering what you think we should do about these drop shadows. What I was thinking we could do is. .” Benny let him talk, nodding from time to time, and before long, Seth had arrived at a conclusion without needing any input from Benny at all. Just as he was leaving, Benny thought what the hell, and called out to him. “‘Hey, it’s my sister’s wedding,’” he said, angrily. “Oh, yeah?” said Seth. “Your sister’s getting married?” “‘And when the boss tells me to push a button on a guy,’” Benny continued, “‘I push a button.’” Seth stared at him. “Cool,” he said. He nodded. Then he walked away.

In the afternoon Carter Shilling came to his cube, and Benny didn’t think he could continue if he had to talk with Carter, his scruffy, cross-eyed boss. A rasp or a boom, those were the two ways Carter communicated, and he was currently booming, raving about how stupid the client was to request such stupid changes to their ad. For a long time Benny didn’t have to say a word. Finally Carter looked at him and asked him if he agreed that the client was stupid. “‘I think if we had a wartime consigliere,’” Benny found himself answering in a small voice, “‘we wouldn’t be in this mess.’” Carter gazed down at him and asked if that was code for something. “Are you saying we’re at fault here?” asked Carter.

“So I swear to god, Jim,” said Benny, “I put on my most serious face, man. I mean, I was nothing but business, and I looked him straight in the eye and I said, ‘Carter, this sort of thing has to happen every five years or so. Helps to get rid of the bad blood.’ And both of us, at the same time, looked back down at the ad, which the client had just ripped to shreds, and he says to me, ‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘I suppose.’ As if what I just said made any sense whatsoever. ‘Go ahead and make the changes, then,’ he says. ‘I don’t give a damn anymore.’ And then he stormed out of my office. It was —”

Just then the two men were interrupted by Carter Shilling himself as he happened by Jim’s office on his way to the meeting. “You’re not Jim,” he rasped, pointing at Benny. “You’re Jim,” he said, pointing at Jim. “What’s with the switcheroo?”

“Damn, Jim!” cried Benny, snapping his fingers aw-shucks style. “He caught on.”

With no visible change in expression, Carter nodded his laughter. He expressed many of his emotions with a simple nod. He turned away from Benny. “You coming to the meeting?” he asked Jim.

“On my way,” said Jim.

“Jim, it was priceless,” said Benny, once Carter had departed.

“Benny, don’t talk to Carter like that.”

“I miss Joe Pope,” said Benny.

“You still haven’t explained why Marcia’s mad at you,” said Jim.

Benny was only too happy to pick up the story where he was forced to leave off when Carter appeared. He told Jim that as the afternoon wore on, his task got more complicated. His memory of Godfather quotes was being heavily taxed, and around three in the afternoon, Marcia started calling him with unusual frequency, almost once every ten minutes. Benny couldn’t use the phone because it would be impossible to keep to the rules of the game over the phone, so he let it ring and then checked his voice mail for messages. But Marcia wasn’t leaving messages. “I’ve told you about her brothers, right?” he said to Jim.

“That they eat Jews for dinner.”

“Right,” said Benny. “Even the youngest is basically just a walking crowbar. The wedding’s going to be. . what are those family names, in Romeo and Juliet?”

“The Montagues and the Capulets,” said Jim.

“The Montagues and the Capulets,” cried Benny. “That’s exactly right. How’d you know that?”

“I took a course in Shakespeare last summer,” said Jim. “A continuing education thing.”

“No shit?” said Benny. “So yeah, the wedding’s going to be like the Montagues and the Capulets. Except the Montagues won’t have swords, they’ll have Saturday-night specials, you know, and us, we’ll just have the Torah and whatever shards we can collect from the breaking of the glass. Anyway,” he said.

He let his office phone ring the rest of the afternoon, puzzled why Marcia was calling and not leaving messages, and answered his cell phone only after the workday had come to an end and he had departed the building. When he finally picked up, Marcia was in hysterics. Her youngest brother had gotten into a fight — he was still only a sophomore in high school — and had to be taken to a South Side hospital. Marcia’s mother was crying, her older brothers were vowing revenge, and her father was sleeping off a night shift. Marcia was trying to get ahold of Benny so he could help her keep things together. Benny rushed over to the hospital and inquired at the nurses’ station what room the boy was in.

“When I got there, nobody else was around. Turns out later they were down talking to the doctor. I walked in and took one look at Mikey in his hospital bed — Jim, he was all fucked up. Broken arm, black eyes. Big gash in his chin. But he was awake. The kid was going to be fine. And you know what I said? I just couldn’t help myself. I went right up to him and I said, ‘My boy! Look what they done to my boy!’”

Marcia found out later why Benny hadn’t been picking up the phone, and that’s why she was mad at him. She thought it was a thoughtless and juvenile game to play and it explained why he was still in a cube. “Why can’t you be more like Jim?” she asked.

Carter Shilling stopped by again. “Jim, you coming?”

“Carter,” said Jim, rising at the sound of the man’s voice. “Coming.”

“Jim, it was priceless,” Benny said, once Carter had departed.

“I gotta go do this meeting,” said Jim.

He collected some papers off his desk and Benny was left sitting alone in another man’s office. He was trying to decide whether or not to get up — he supposed there was some work he could do back at his cube, if Ian didn’t interrupt him — when Jim reappeared in the doorway. “So what now?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean if you can get by with quotes from The Godfather, and nothing you say matters, that’s pretty bleak, don’t you think? Don’t we want what we say to matter?”

Benny swiveled effortlessly in the chair that wasn’t his and gave Jim a puzzled, surprised look. He unsteepled his fingers and opened his hands into a shrug. “What is this, Jim, what’s wrong with you? I was just having some fun.”

“Don’t you want people to take you seriously, Benny?”

“But why do you have to phrase it like that? Why does Marcia have to ask me why I can’t be more like you, and why can’t Michael listen to my story for ten stupid minutes? What’s happened to everybody? You’re all so serious.”

Jim hung in the doorway, ponderous and unresponsive. “Why did you keep Old Brizz’s totem pole?” he said at last.

“What?” said Benny. “What are you talking about? I didn’t. I gave it away.”

“No, you kept it in storage for six months. Why did you do that?”

“Where is this coming from?”

“I’ve always wanted to know.”

“But why are you bringing it up now?” Benny asked.

“Did you think,” said Jim, “that he was trying to communicate something to you?”

Benny stopped swiveling and grabbed Jim’s armrests. “Like what?”

“I don’t know,” said Jim. “I’m asking you.”

“Maybe he was just playing a practical joke on me. Maybe because he knew I had him at the top of my list in Celebrity Death Watch.”

“Maybe,” said Jim. “But Brizz wasn’t one to play practical jokes.”

Benny nodded in agreement. “No, he wasn’t.”

“And as it turns out, that thing was worth a lot of money,” Jim added. “Leaving someone a lot of money isn’t a very mean practical joke.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“So why’d you store it? Why’d you keep it for six months?”

“It meant something to me, I guess.”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” said Benny.

“You don’t know?”

“I do and I don’t,” said Benny. “You know what I mean?”

Jim bit the inside of his cheek. He nodded slowly in a sign of respectful resignation.

“Hank Neary,” he said finally, shaking his head. He said it again: “Hank Neary.” Then he threw up his hands and went off down the hall to his meeting.

SOME PEOPLE WOULD NEVER FORGET certain people, a few people would remember everyone, and most of us would mostly be forgotten. Sometimes it was for the best. Larry Novotny wanted to be forgotten for his dalliance with Amber Ludwig. Tom Mota wanted to be forgotten for that incident involving the paintballs. But did anybody want to be forgotten about completely? We had dedicated years to that place, we labored under the notion we were making names for ourselves, we had to believe in our hearts that each one of us was memorable. And yet who wanted to be remembered for their poor taste or bad breath? Still, better to be remembered for those things than forgotten for your perfect parboiled blandness.

In other words, amnesty was a gift, but oblivion was terror.

Most of us recalled in a general way this person or that, their features exaggerated by memory, their names lost forever. Of others we could pull up only the murkiest general outline, as if rather than walking past them in the hall a hundred times a day, we’d encountered them in a cloud once, mumbled a polite exchange, and moved on. Once in a great while, every random detail — tone of voice, where the mole was — came screaming out of the clear blue. What a weird sensation that was. And then there were some people some of us could not shake. Janine Gorjanc couldn’t shake the memory of her lost child. Benny couldn’t shake Frank Brizzolera because Frank had died and bequeathed him a totem pole. Uncle Max would never forget his Edna.

As for us, it was never a worry. We would never be forgotten by anyone.

“You jackass,” Marcia said to Benny later that day. “How could you forget Hank Neary?”

Benny hurried down to Jim’s doorway. “The black dude!” he cried. “With the corduroy coat!”

“Aw, man! I wanted to tell you that!” said Jim. He was reading Hank’s e-mail, which had gone to him as well, to an e-mail account he rarely checked. “His face just now came to me,” he said. “How could we have forgotten Hank, Benny?”

“I don’t know,” replied Benny. “I guess it just happens.”

EVERYONE HAD RECEIVED the same e-mail as Benny and Jim and we all wondered how Hank had managed to track us down, scattered as we were. Most of us remembered him perfectly and recognized his name right away, because it wasn’t every day you worked with a black guy who dressed like a poetry don at Oxford. We used to joke that the only thing missing was a pipe which he could grip with his teeth as he gave ponderous consideration to the iambic pentameter’s slow demise. But no, he wasn’t a poet, he was a failed novelist, and when we got his e-mail, it was like hearing that one of Don Blattner’s screenplays had been picked up by Warner Brothers and George Clooney was starring. It turned out that Hank had published a book, and his reading was taking place at a bookstore on the campus of the University of Chicago. We were intrigued and disbelieving.

We packed the room full. We hardly had time to say hello to everyone when he appeared, book in hand, alongside a stooped, bearded gentleman who took to the podium and introduced him. He had many nice things to say about Hank, whose bashful, averted gaze we took note of as the man spoke. We also noticed that instead of the corduroy coat, Hank now wore a plain white Fruit-of-the-Loom T-shirt that accentuated his dark lanky arms and boyish torso. Without his bulky glasses his face was leaner, more handsome. He wore a pair of jeans and a simple black belt. It was a better look for him all around, and we were pleased to see that he’d moved beyond his weird ersatz professorial phase. We didn’t say so at the time, but it never seemed appropriate.

As the introduction continued, we looked around at some of the familiar faces. Amber Ludwig sat at the end of the third row with a kid in her lap, a little girl who played industriously with a dirty, undressed doll. The poor kid had Larry’s masculine features but Amber’s stout, seal-like body. Larry Novotny himself sat in back, alone, hiding beneath a brand-new Cubs cap. Dan Wisdom was seated next to Don Blattner, and to the right, in the front row, Genevieve Latko-Devine sat beside her husband. He was holding a baby to his chest, which suddenly let out a succession of unhappy cries. In rapid response he shifted the child in his arms and rubbed its back tenderly and it was sleeping again in no time.

Everyone applauded when Hank rose and stood at the podium. We bucked a little at some microphone feedback. He readjusted the mic, gave us a sheepish smile, and began to speak with an endearing quaver in his voice. We could tell he was nervous. All at once, great swells of conflicted emotion flooded over us. One of our own had made good: we were proud, astounded, envious, incredulous, vaguely indifferent, ready to seize on the first hint of mediocrity, and genuinely pleased for him. We were all those things and more. Before sitting down, many of us had taken copies of his book off the display rack, and we thumbed through them now for errata. We read the acknowledgments page to see who he thanked. What was it about, anyway? And who, working our hours, had time to read books? We had to force ourselves to stop and pay attention, as he had finished thanking us for coming and was opening the book to read.

“‘The night before,’” he began. Suddenly he stopped. The room froze with anxiety. He was stiff-arming the podium with a white-knuckled grip and staring down as if trying to recall how to breathe. He cleared his throat. He took a sip of water. The glass quivered in his hand. Then he took a deep breath and resumed.

“‘The night before the operation,’” he started up again, to our great relief, “she has no association dinners to go to, no awards ceremonies, no networking functions. A plan comes to her impromptu in the back of the cab as she steps in and instructs the driver to take the Inner Drive. She envisions her sofa, her two cats, something good ordered in, and a bottle of wine she’s been saving. They ask you not to eat anything twelve hours before, but honestly, that’s unreasonable, isn’t it — your last chance at a normal meal for how long?’”

The room was silent but for a few hushed noises issuing from the faraway registers and Hank’s lone, crackling voice, amplified by the microphone, which accentuated the subtle cottony smacks of words formed within his dry mouth. We were so nervous on his behalf that, once he had started up again, it was hard to concentrate on what he was saying. We were just happy to see that he wasn’t going to faint.

He shifted his stance from one foot to the other, relaxed his arms a little, and read now with an easier, more pleasing rhythm. “‘. . better to see them with someone, though. Alone, there is that awkward ten minutes between the time you arrive and the time they dim the lights for the previews when against all reason you believe everyone in the theater is staring at you because. .’”

We kept looking around at the familiar faces. Plump Benny Shassburger and freckle-faced Jim Jackers sat together, and between them, Marcia Dwyer with a rather dated haircut. Carl Garbedian was there with Marilynn. He was hardly recognizable. His gut was gone and he was tan as an almond. He was wearing a dark blue linen blazer with an open-collared shirt and he’d done something with his hair. His legs crossed, he was focused on Hank with great curiosity, perfectly still, listening.

“‘. . walking the hallway toward some associate’s office. Is she really longing to be a part of that? She would replace these bright and open spaces full of the world’s best footwear, fashions. .’”

Karen Woo was there, which we had mixed feelings about. No Chris Yop that we could see. He’d apparently never forgiven us for that long-ago slight. No Tom Mota, either, and we guessed he was probably in the pen somewhere trying to convince the guards to let him grow tomatoes alongside the edges of the basketball court. Janine Gorjanc was changed. She wore a pair of leather chaps over her stonewashed jeans and had a matching leather vest. Dangling silver earrings, which might have been made in Santa Fe, flashed beside her hair, which she had allowed to grow long and turn gray. Before the reading, she introduced us to her boyfriend. He wore a leather vest as well and sported a bushy handlebar mustache. His name was Harry and he had shaken our hands much more timidly than his facial hair indicated he would. They had ridden to the reading on Harry’s hog and both carried vintage black helmets like those worn in World War II. It was kind of weird to see that Janine was into motorcycles now. When the reading began, she and Harry settled themselves in one of the back rows.

“‘. . inside now — the place had an airy, echoic atmosphere, rumbling low with hushed voices, and footsteps on marble stairs she could pick out one by one. He took the blindfold off and they spent an hour. .’”

If Old Brizz had been there, he probably would have cut out for a smoke break, as Hank’s reading was taking longer than we had anticipated. We had stopped paying attention altogether. Our long-suffering preoccupations got the better of us — family concerns, projects going on at work, the weekend and what it held in store, something funny said at lunch, the genius of the infield-fly rule, nice jacket there, bad shoes on her, could really use a drink — all that. Hank’s soft, steady voice floated over our heads like clouds drifting over the tops of buildings.

“‘. . watching the sky open at her window, it is magnificent, especially after all the work she’s put in. .’”

And we couldn’t stop wondering where Joe Pope might be. He had always appeared to like Hank. Odd for him not to come out and support him like the rest of us. And then we thought, wait a minute. Had five years been so unkind to our memories that we could forget where to find Joe Pope at that hour? He was still at the office, of course, working.

Finally Hank closed his book and said, “Thank you.” We applauded approvingly.

AFTER THE READING CONCLUDED, we milled about. We bought copies of Hank’s book. We went up to congratulate him. We were all handshakes and hugs and he signed our books with personal good wishes. Someone asked him if this book was the same book as the one he had talked about during our time together, his small, angry book about work. Thanks to being laid off and forced to find new jobs, we had discovered that every agency has its frustrated copywriter whose real life was being a failed novelist working on a small, angry book about work. Work was a fetishistic subject for some of our colleagues, but unlike Don Blattner, who wanted everyone to read his screenplays so long as they signed confidentiality agreements, the book writers played their cards much closer to the vest, and usually ended up folding. Howling screeds went mute inside desk drawers. Lovingly ground axes melted in fireplaces. We felt grateful on behalf of the world.

“No,” Hank replied. “This is a different book.”

“What happened to the old one?” someone asked. He had such ambition for it.

“That one was put down like an ailing dog,” he said. “But how about you?” he asked suddenly, looking around. “What’s new with you guys?”

We could tell he was eager to shift the spotlight from his failed novel onto something else, so Benny and Marcia announced that they were getting married in the fall.

“If he doesn’t piss me off before then,” she said, looking at Benny affectionately.

She wore an achingly modest diamond ring and threaded her arm through Benny’s just as Benny shared the equally incredible news that, for all intents and purposes, Jim Jackers was his new boss.

“Can you believe that?” he said. “This guy right here!”

He put his arm around Jim and bent his head down like he was about to give him a noogie. Jim raised his eyebrows in mute and modest capitulation and for a moment the three of them, Marcia and Benny and Jim, were linked physically as if they were a little family.

Carl told us the details of his landscaping company, Garbedian and Son, a modest outfit. “Come on, be honest,” Marilynn said. She turned to Hank. “It’s a phenomenon, is what it is.” “Is that true, Carl?” asked Hank. We all urged Carl to tell us more. Finally he admitted, “We do work in about twenty suburbs.” We thought, Holy shit! Twenty suburbs? The guy must be raking it in. “But you’re still no doctor, are you?” we expected Jim Jackers to say, but he said no such thing, and it didn’t even seem to be on Carl’s mind. He was smiling and nodding and he had his arm around Marilynn as if landscaping had changed his life.

Amber introduced us to Becky, who was bashful and hid behind her mother’s sturdy leg. We looked around for Larry, but he was gone. We avoided the topic by concentrating on the kid. Eventually we entered back into adult conversation, and that’s when Becky came out from behind Amber’s leg and approached Benny. She seemed interested in introducing him to her naked and soiled doll. He bent down and made its acquaintance. Everyone congratulated Genevieve on her baby as well, and her husband answered for her when we asked how old it was (ten months), because Genevieve and Amber were lost to stories of motherhood.

The funny thing about work itself, it was so bearable. The dreariest task was perfectly bearable. It presented challenges to overcome, the distraction provided by a sense of urgency, and the satisfaction of a task’s completion — on any given day, those things made work utterly, even harmoniously bearable. What we bitched about, what we couldn’t let lie, what drove us to distraction and consumed us with blind fury, was this person or that who rankled and bugged and offended angels in heaven, who wore their clothes all wrong and foisted upon us their insufferable features, who deserved from a just god nothing but scorn because they were insipid, unpoetic, mercilessly enduring, and lost to the grand gesture. And maybe so, yes, maybe so. But as we stood there, we had a hard time recalling the specific details, because everyone seemed so agreeable.

At Benny’s suggestion we headed out for a drink. There was an Irish pub nearby and we brought tables together and Carl Garbedian bought the first round, which was only right given his twenty suburbs, and we toasted Hank and his accomplishment, and we talked of regrets and of old times and happily recalled that not all had been misery. By the time we had worked down that first round, we had reason to remember that Benny had been a good storyteller, and Jim Jackers a good sport, and Genevieve a pleasure to look upon. And Lynn Mason, we all agreed, had been a better boss than any we’d found since. Next to Handlebar Harry, who defied our drinking expectations by ordering a cup of decaf, Janine sat sipping her familiar frosted glass of cranberry juice, which was somehow comforting. She reached out to tap Hank on the hand. “I’ve read your book, Hank,” she said.

“Oh,” said Hank. “Thank you.”

“It’s about Lynn, isn’t it.”

“Well,” he said. “Some of it is based on Lynn, yes.”

We couldn’t believe it. His book was about Lynn?

“And is it true?” she asked.

“The book? No, the book is. . which part?”

“Any of it.”

“Well, I visited her several times in the hospital,” he said.

Wait a minute, we thought, wait a minute. He had visited her in the hospital?

“In the first book I tried to write,” he explained, “the book I put down, I based a character on Lynn, and I made that character into a tyrant. I did it on principle, because anyone who was a boss in that book had to be a tyrant. Anyone who believed in the merits of capitalism, and soul-destroying corporations, and work work work — all that — naturally that person wasn’t deserving of any sympathy. But when I decided to retire that book, thank god, and write something different, I knew she was sick, so I went to see her. Just on a lark. Because what did I know about her? Nothing, really. I didn’t know her — not in any meaningful way. And it turned out she was very open to talking with me, not only about her sickness, but also her personal life, a lot of other things. She was dying at the time —”

Jim Jackers stopped him. “What do you mean?”

“Lynn died in the summer of 2003,” Hank replied. “Of ovarian cancer.”

“Am I the only one who didn’t know that?” Jim asked, looking around.

“And I think she knew she was dying,” Hank continued, “and in a way, I also think she hoped that I would write something worth a damn, which I can tell you, I did not. I can assure you I did not. Not with respect to her, anyway.”

Janine objected. “I’ve read it,” she said. “You most certainly did.”

“Trust me,” Hank told her. “I didn’t get the half of it.”

GENEVIEVE AND HER HUSBAND LEFT because they had to put the baby to bed, and we lost Amber and Becky, too. Benny didn’t want them to go — all his windows were fogged up with nostalgia — but they insisted they had to get home. He demanded that the rest of us stay, and so we stayed. Most of us wanted another drink anyway. Marcia hit the jukebox with about a week’s salary and played one saccharine ballad after another and it felt like not a day had passed since we’d parted. Jim Jackers bought the next round, which was only right given his inexplicable rise up the ladder, and the fact that we’d had to suffer him during his weaning years.

We toasted to Lynn Mason’s memory and found ourselves telling stories of her, encounters and exchanges we had no trouble recalling the way we had, say, encounters with Old Brizz — she was our boss, after all, and we all had our separate and memorable experiences with her. None of us could forget, for example, the thrill and glory we experienced when she took a particular liking to a concept one of us had come up with, and we recalled with startling accuracy what job it was for, and the concept, and the reasons she gave for her admiration. Nobody’s approbation meant more to us than hers, and nothing was easier than recalling her words of approval. We also remembered her expensive and delicate shoes, and the time she showed up at Carl’s bedside with a pathetic bouquet of flowers, and how she had put up flyers for Janine alongside the rest of us when Jessica went missing, and Jim told us the story of being in an elevator when she told him that she had once been a hula girl. “She was just joking,” he said, “but I took her so seriously.” We remembered that despite how formidable she always seemed, a lot of the things she said were funny.

By the end of the second round, Sandy Green from payroll said she had to get home, and so did Donald Sato and Paulette Singletary. Benny begged them all to stay. He wanted to talk about whether or not they were currently happy at their new jobs, what the people were like, and if they had any complaints. “You know,” he prodded, “compared to how it used to be.” They stayed for a while longer, but when finally they left, Benny looked downcast. “What was that Tom Mota used to say, the send-off he used to give when somebody quit? Anybody remember?”

No one did.

“It was a toast,” said Benny, “and it went something like ‘So good luck to you.’ And then he’d finish off his drink, remember, and sort of burp? And then he’d bring the glass back up and say, ‘And fuck you for leaving, you prick.’”

Everyone laughed, though it wasn’t strictly speaking very funny — in fact, it was pretty uncomfortable. When the laughter died down, we wondered aloud what had happened to Tom and why he wasn’t at the reading.

“You don’t know about Tom?” said Carl.

Nobody knew a thing.

“Do you know he joined the army?”

Joined the army? Carl was pulling our leg.

“No, it’s true.”

“Come on,” said Benny.

“Nobody else got Tom’s e-mails?”

No one could say they had.

“Strange. He used to write to everybody.”

“Come on,” said Benny. “They let that nut join the army?”

“Superior marksmanship skills,” Carl said simply.

Suddenly a crazy notion almost seemed possible.

“He was looking at jail time,” Carl continued, “you know that much. But his wife, Barb, testified on his behalf. And so did Joe Pope. Yeah,” he said, to our expressions of disbelief. “And so the DA agreed to reduce the charges down to a misdemeanor. After that, he came to work for me for a time. But not for very long. He kept talking about wanting to join up — after all that had happened, you know. He just couldn’t get it out of his head. He was afraid he was too old. And he was afraid they wouldn’t take him because of his record. But it kept gnawing at him. He wouldn’t go down to talk to a recruiter, though, because he was afraid they’d tell him no — he wanted it so badly. He didn’t want somebody telling him no. But one day on a prayer he just went down there, and by sheer luck, he and the recruiting officer hit it off, they just hit it off right away. Tom told him what he wanted to do and how bad he wanted it, and the guy, the recruiting officer, arranged it so Tom could show him what he had to offer. And after they saw him shoot, they said, You want to join up, we’re happy to have you. So Tom joined the army.”

Carl had to be joking.

“No, he’s not,” said Janine.

We all looked at Janine. Did she get e-mails from Tom, too?

“He wrote me letters,” she replied.

“He said it was the best decision he ever made,” said Carl.

“And he never regretted it,” said Janine. “He was happy to be there. He was happy to be doing what he was doing.”

“He believed, you know,” said Carl, “in fighting for his country.”

“He called it — and I will always remember Tom for many things,” said Janine. “But one thing he wrote I will never forget. I still have the letter. He called this country the best republic that ever began to fade. Those were his exact words. I still have it. He was very proud that they put him in a special marksman’s division.”

“It comes as no surprise to anybody that Tom had good aim, I guess,” said Carl.

The tears that hung in Janine’s eyes were familiar, despite all the new leather. “And he was probably a good soldier, too — wouldn’t you think, Carl?”

“It was discipline he had needed for thirty-seven years. At least that’s how he put it to me,” said Carl.

“Which is still very young,” said Janine. “Thirty-seven.”

“Yes,” Carl agreed. “Very young.”

“What happened?” asked Benny. “What happened to him?”

Everyone ordered martinis in Tom’s honor, and toasted him as a patriot and a scholar, a good soldier, and a lousy corporate citizen. We thanked him for sending outlandish e-mails, for the antics inspired by his consumption of two martinis at lunch, and for all the crazy shit he did that in hindsight had provided us with a lot of entertainment, without which our afternoons would have been longer and our lives more dull. He had been killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan.

“To Tom,” we said.

We raised our martini glasses. “To Tom.”

“Goodness,” said Janine, with a sour face. “How could he have enjoyed such things?”

WITHOUT DON BLATTNER, we might have lost ourselves to the oblivion of drink and dark thoughts, but Hank asked him how his writing was going, and Don let it be known that by some miraculous, persevering nerve of his, he had not given up working on his wretched and unproduceable screenplays. He was in the thick of one even as we spoke, which he believed had real potential. “But I always say that,” said Don. Which was true — he always said that. We asked what his new one was about, and he told us that it was the story of a highly revered Tibetan lama who, on a speaking tour of the United States, gets seduced into the lucrative world of endorsement contracts. He finds himself improving the ads in which he appears, much to the awe and excitement of the hapless creative team in charge of the account, whose cynicism and ennui are at an all-time high. The lama ultimately finds his own true happiness in forsaking his fawning followers for the newly rejuvenated advertising agency, becoming the team’s executive creative director in charge of the Nike, Microsoft, and BMW accounts. He sleeps with models and dies happily reading Time magazine in a whirlpool in Crested Butte, Colorado.

Everyone thought it was going to be a big hit.

“We’ll see,” said Don.

Carl and Marilynn left us, and we lost Janine and Harry to the exigencies of middle-aged sleep. Some other guy left, and Jim turned to Benny. “Benny, who was that guy who just left? We work with that guy?”

“That was Sanderson,” said Benny. “Bill Sanderson.”

“Bill Sanderson?”

“You remember Bill,” said Benny.

“I have no recollection of that guy.”

“Sure you do, Jim. You just don’t recognize him without his mustache.”

Soon Jim himself was preparing to leave. “It’s a school night,” he explained.

A school night? When had Jim Jackers become so. . so. . adult?

“Jimmy, don’t you leave!” cried Benny.

“Benny, you’ll see me tomorrow.”

“Oh, I guess that’s true, isn’t it,” said Benny. “Come here, old buddy.” Benny was on his last drink, according to Marcia. Jim was forced to bend down and hug him.

“I had better get going myself,” said Reiser.

“You can’t leave, Reiser!” said Benny. “You haven’t said a word about the people you’re with now. What are they like? Are you happy?”

Reiser rose as Benny fired off his round of questions, shrugging nonchalantly at each one.

“But do you miss it?” Benny persisted.

“Miss what?” asked Reiser.

“I’ll tell you who I miss,” Benny said. Suddenly he was pulling out his cell phone. “Let’s call Joe Pope!”

We watched Reiser hobble out of the bar, and for some reason it was comforting to see that he still walked with a limp. As soon as he was gone Benny put his phone up to his ear and tried to get an answer.

“I must have dialed the wrong extension,” he concluded, hitting end. “That was the desk of someone named Brian Bayer. Anybody recognize that name?”

Nobody did. He must have come after our time. Odd to think they were hiring again. We had a hard time picturing those familiar surroundings peopled by strangers, unfamiliar voices calling out from behind the plasterboard partitions of our old cubicles, unrecognizable men and women sitting in our chairs.

We asked Benny what extension he was dialing. He had it right — that was Joe’s extension. Nobody could forget it, we had dialed it so often. He hit end a second time. “Brian Bayer again,” he said. He had the ingenious solution of calling the main switchboard. When prompted, he pressed “P” for Pope. “His name isn’t coming up,” he said.

Don Blattner came back from the men’s room and asked Dan Wisdom if he was ready to go. They had driven together.

“His name didn’t come up,” said Benny.

“We had better get going, too, Benny,” said Marcia. “It’s getting late.”

Don and Dan threw money down on the table and we said good-bye to them. “Hey, wait!” Benny cried out. But he was too distracted to get off the phone, and eventually they left.

“Where is he?” he said, setting his cell phone down and looking around at the rest of us. “Where’s Joe Pope?”

“Come on, Benny,” said Marcia, “I’m taking you home.”

“He’s not in the directory, Marcia. Where is he?”

“Benny, honey, you’re drunk.”

“It’s Joe,” he said. “He never leaves his desk.”

“Benny,” she said.

“Where’s Genevieve? Where is she? She’ll know where he is.”

“Genevieve? Benny, honey, she left hours ago.”

She pried him from his chair.

“Hank, you must know what happened. What happened to Joe, Hank?”

But if Hank knew anything, he wasn’t saying. We watched Benny stumble drunkenly to his feet. “But it’s Joe, Marcia,” he said. “Joe doesn’t leave.”

“Benny,” she said. “Sometimes you just lose track.”

Soon they were out the door, followed by the last strains of one of Marcia’s hair-band ballads.

Most of us followed them out soon after, and, in the end, last call was announced. The lights came up, the jukebox went quiet. We could hear the clink of glasses and the exhausted silence of the waitstaff as they began to clean up, wiping down the shiny surfaces, placing the padded barstools on top of the bar. Their work would soon be done, they could see something waiting for them at home — a bed, a meal, a lover. But we didn’t want the night to end. We kept hanging on, waiting for them to send over the big guy who’d force us out with a final command. And we would leave, eventually. Out to the parking lot, a few parting words. “Sure was good to see you again,” we’d say. And with that, we’d get in our cars and open the windows and drive off, tapping the horn a final time. But for the moment, it was nice just to sit there together. We were the only two left. Just the two of us, you and me.