by Gabriel Ricard
Witness #1: Robert (co-worker)
“It’s always the one you least suspect.”
That’s what my mother used to say. Up until today, I dismissed this advice as the clichéd ranting of a mentally crippled alcoholic trapped in the body of a morbidly obese child molester. Until now. Until now, because if I had ever sat down and drew a lottery pick for the one face in this office I was willing to bet was headed for a breakdown, the last one, the absolute last one I would have guessed would have been James. Until now, he was the calmest, most collected of all the misfits on the seventeenth floor. Hell, he was probably in the top-ten for the whole building. He just wasn’t someone you’d bet money on for the fast track to the loony-bin end of things. He never got especially upset at things. He didn’t drink coffee like insomnia was going out of style, the way virtually all of us do. He wasn’t given to crying at weird moments, like most of the secretaries. You wouldn’t see him alone; screaming 70’s commercial jingles, like Ted, from accounting. You’d never catch him trying to bring salvation into the lives of the office plants, like Mike, from Human Resources. I mean, in short, the guy came to work, said hello to everyone, made light conversation if the moment called for it, did his job, ate a healthy lunch, worked some more, kept up light conversation, and around six or seven, he’d be out of here. Maybe one or two cups of coffee in between. And that was all there was to him. As far as we know.
Which, apparently, wasn’t nearly as much as we would have guessed.
Anyway, I wasn’t the first one to see him. Jane had to share an elevator with him. She could probably tell you a lot more.
Jesus, could you imagine? The poor girl. Maybe I’m going a little too far in saying this, but it’s a distinct possibility that she’s lucky to be alive. Jane has a hard time being grateful for anything, so I’m sure the thought hasn’t occurred to her. But it should. That’s how shocking and gruesome this whole story is to me. Just a ragged breath and a half closer to the edge of the cliff, and I’d be telling you about how James and Jane went into the elevator, and came out a few minutes later with James wearing Jane’s skin for a coat as he ran down the hallway and told everyone that Jesus was that little black kid from Jerry Springer who joined The Klu Klux Klan.
Jane probably hasn’t thought of this at all. And I guess that’s probably a good thing.
I’m on the opposite end of the aisle, two tiny cubicles down, and I was probably the first one in that specific area to spot him, to see him sitting down with that weird-ass doll, toy, whatever the hell it is.
And that’s when I was forced to immediately accept the worst.
Because, again, you just don’t see James walk into the office with a giant, freakish looking doll under his arm. You just don’t. You just don’t. You really just don’t see it. You see James walk into the office with a briefcase, maybe some flowers for his wife. That’s it. That’s the bare minimum. Nothing else. So, when that standard changes, what do you do? What can you think? Do you just imagine it’s an extreme rarity and nothing more, or do you play the “cautious card,” as my father always referred to the way he treated the minorities who shopped at his hunting supplies store.
That was usually something he muttered two beers down from passing out on our living room floor.
In any case, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to play the cautious card. Call me a weirdo, but I’ll be the weirdo with both legs and no gunshot wounds. Tell me I’m anal, but I’ll take that over being the guy whose wife has to go on the six o’clock news and cry about not having a father to the child I swear to Christ we’re going to have in the next year, year and a half at the most.
Someone needs to say something though. Someone needs to be the brave son of a bitch who’s willing to put it all on the line for the thing that has to be said if we’re all going to still be here come Christmas bonus time. It has to be now, too, before we’re all fighting over the best sad story slot on some endless six o’clock news report.
But you didn’t hear me say that.
I’m serious.
Keep your fucking mouth shut.
Witness #2: Jane (co-worker)
Yeah, I was on the elevator with him. And I didn’t see that thing until it was too late to pretend I wanted to take the stairs instead. Because if I had known before getting on that elevator, you better believe I would have smiled and said something about needing to knock off those Thanksgiving pounds. When it came into view, all I could do was act natural and hope to god that I wasn’t about to wind up under someone’s floorboards. Which, you know, happened to a close friend of this woman who plays Mahjong with my mother.
Or some old-timer game like that.
Though I don’t know how he’d get my dead body out of the building, but you know what I mean. I’ve had moments before, where I know one wrong move, one badly timed gesture could mean the difference between Letterman and my vibrator and a metal table at the coroner’s downtown.
You just don’t get it. He looked at me, right at me, and said good morning. I smiled, pressing my back against the wall without realizing it. Not in any noticeable way, I guess, since he didn’t really seem to find anything odd about the way I was acting.
I was scared! What was I supposed to say? What was I supposed to do?
And believe me, I wanted to ask him about that thing. As terrified as I was, I wasn’t about to let go of my everyday curiosity. It looked like a gumball with eyes, but I could tell it wasn’t. And he doesn’t have any children, and I’m sure he doesn’t know any. James just isn’t the type of guy who keeps company with people who have little kids crawling all over the place. He didn’t tell me what it was either. He just stood there, holding it under his right arm, blankly staring straight ahead as we rode up to the seventeenth floor. I can’t remember the last time I ever had to fight off such an awful temptation. Twice, I had to catch myself in the middle of the first word. Twice, I guess you could say; I may have very well saved my life. That’s what Robert tells me, don’t tell him I mentioned that to you, and I’m definitely inclined to think he’s actually making sense for the first time in his miserable, premature ejaculating life. In his case, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Three-time employee of the month isn’t something you earn by accident. As much as it pains me to admit that.
According to Sid though, who’s never won employee of the month, we’re just all overreacting. “It’s probably nothing,” he actually told me. Of course, you have to realize, Sid’s only been working here for about a year. Virtually everyone in the office, anyone who’s got something worth saying, thinks differently and knows what’s what. And how can we not go by our instincts? As recently as yesterday, James was one of the most normal people we knew. Good-looking, kind of funny when he had to be, never anything less than really easy to get along with. Weird things were not a part of his life. If they were, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. But they’re just not. Not even at the district manager’s birthday party. When even the best of us can have a little too much to drink and wind up having oral sex with one of the interns in the third stall of the men’s bathroom.
She’s really nice, by the way. Great, tight little body and a wonderfully perverse mind. I don’t know why people need to keep talking about it. It’s not like we’re dating or anything. Two adults who had a little too much to drink and took a moment to explore their bodies do not make a relationship or declare a new sexual orientation. I did it all the time in high school, so why should it be such a big deal now? People are still talking about it, and the damn thing happened like two months, three days, six hours, and forty-eight minutes ago! And it’s not like the bitch ever called me ba–
Sorry. Sorry. Where was I? Oh. Right. Well, after we got off the elevator, I went to my desk, which, praise the lord, is on the other side of the room.
You should probably ask Tom about it, too. He sits right next to James. They even have lunch together.
Well, not anymore.
And that should tell you an awful lot, considering the kind of guy Tom is.
Very sharp, fascinated eyes.
Gorgeous smile, too.
Witness #3: Sid (co-worker)
Not that my opinion appears to matter much, but I think everyone needs to chill the fu–
Witness #3: Tom (co-worker/former office friend)
I’m sick of the whole wretched business, if you want the truth of the matter. Not of talking about it, because I’m fine with telling you what I know. Not really with that, but just with anything, you know, that directly deals with the problem itself. Anything to do with being afraid, I guess you could say. I don’t like it. This fear that’s been following me around everywhere I’ve been today. You know, the fear of not knowing what that crazy bastard’s gonna do next. The fear of not knowing exactly what’s running across the mind he currently has in his possession. No one does. Not a single one of us knows if he’s gonna keep coming into work and repeat this obvious, relentless moment of insanity. Just as no one can say if it’s gonna get better, or especially, if it’s gonna get better.
It’s awful in the thickest sense of the word. And it’s not even like I didn’t try to ask him. Being the kind of person I tend to be on a day-to-day basis, I did ask him. I stared at him for at least twenty minutes. My eyes made it clear that I was willing to be the sympathetic ear. I was listening to music at the moment, a luxury our manager allows on alternate Fridays, and I had my headphones on, but that shouldn’t have stopped him. It shouldn’t have, but it still managed to. He never did a single thing towards my silent, though obvious offer. He just went on with his work like nothing was at all unusual. Like he didn’t have the entire office watching his every movement. I say for the most part, because of what happened very quickly. I say very quickly, because it was the exact moment I stopped looking at him.
It was the exact moment he started talking to it. That bizarre, hideous toy that was now sitting on his desk in blatant, horribly clear sight for every last one of us to see. You know, that thing has got to be one of the most ugly chunks of children’s glee that I’ve ever seen. It looks like the most grotesque gumball looking thing in the history of whatever. And he actually talked to it! As in, words and sentences that, you know, constitute the normal dialogue most of us engage in throughout our lives. I still had my headphones on, so I can’t throw out any specifics on what was said. I can only guess and suggest to myself and to anyone interested in theory.
And I’ll say this much, I never thought I’d be so scared of my own success rate in those theories.
The real tragedy of it is that I used to enjoy his company a great deal. He was a classic listener in the most positive sense. No one could listen to a story with his skill, his silent insight. I guess that was just a sign of things to come.
As for anyone else to ask about this, I guess I could, you know, nominate Martin, our manager. I can’t think of anyone else whose knowledge of everyone in the company exceeds his. I haven’t seen Martin since this morning, so I can’t say if he’s in good shape or not. But he’d be the next one in line. No doubt about it.
Witness #5: Sid (co-worker)
This is bullshi–
Witness #6: Martin (manager)
Look, I’ve heard the complaints and concerns. All day, I’ve had people periodically come into my office and demand that something be done. I can respect that need. And I’ve been really meaning to talk to him about it. I really have. I take my job seriously, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Someone needs to do it. There’s no question of that. And as manager, five years and still in good shape, it’s my responsibility. I recognize that, and I wouldn’t argue about it for the world. I like my job, and I like the perception people have of me at my job. They believe I’m fair when possible, tough when it’s needed, easy to please, and fun to be around. I wouldn’t jeopardize that. Again, nothing in the world would make me even consider it.
But look at it from my perspective. How do you approach someone about something like this? What do you say to someone who’s suddenly giving you evidence of a potential level-one nervous breakdown. A level-one breakdown, I should add, that would see a terrible drop, possibly as high as seventy-two percent, in both Level-A Morale and Productivity. My floor has been number one in both respects for over two years, and I wouldn’t dream of seeing that tampered with. But again, I ask: How do you talk to someone about something like this? Sure, my training covers scenarios like this, but it’s another thing altogether when you have to actually deal with it yourself. Which isn’t to say that I’m afraid of him. I’m not. Wary is a better word. I’m wary of how to initiate such a dialogue, and I’m wary of how James will react when I do. Not afraid, but it still might be uncomfortable all the same. And, as you probably already guessed, I have to keep the others in mind. Some of them are afraid. There’s no two ways around that. Now, I’m not afraid, but they are, and if James were to react poorly, then we would have a problem in light of knowing that some of the others are afraid.
Wary. That’s all.
For what it’s worth, I have seen the doll for myself. It looks a little like a candy, you know, something like a gumball. It has small flipper-like hands, red feet, and a face consisting of two eyes, a mouth engaging in what I believe is a smile, and a pink, blob-looking shape on each side of its eyes. Beyond that, I can’t tell you anything further in regards to a description. Our policy towards children’s toys is quite clear. No toy exceeding twenty inches is to be allowed at a workstation. As you may have noticed, this toy, whatever it is, clocks in at around sixteen inches.
Policy also says that any children’s toy larger than eight inches are to be kept under the desk, so as not to distract anyone within eyesight. This is something I will have to talk to James about. And I will.
Probably, no, definitely tomorrow, if not today.
Remember: I have always taken my position very seriously, and I’m not about to change that.
Witness #7: Sid (co-worker)
I swear to god, I’m gonna–
Witness #7: Toby (janitor)
Who?
Witness #8: James (the guilty party)
Okay. I’m going to make this as simple as possible, for anyone who actually wants to waste time caring.
I bought the toy on my way to work, at that little store that sells Japanese animation stuff.
The toy is for my six-year-old niece. She loves this stuff.
No one knows I have a niece, because I try to avoid conversation with these people as often as possible.
They scare and annoy the living crap out of me, if you want the truth.
And no one even thinks to ask anyway. If you’ve noticed that. I think the closest thing anyone got to ask me today was when Tom stared at me for twenty minutes. But I ignored him, since I was trying to work out some figures in my head. I hate calculators, so I have a habit of just sitting at my desk and muttering the numbers until I get it.
Knowing Tom, he probably forgot this completely and just assumed I was talking to the doll.
I eat lunch with him because he won’t leave me alone. And I’m too polite to tell him to go the hell away.
I didn’t hide it because I just didn’t think about it. I was ten minutes late as it was, and when I got to my desk; I just dumped it on the side of my computer and forgot about it.
That’s about it. Any more simple than that, and I’d have to break out the puppets.
And no, I don’t know what it is. I think it’s from a video game. I wanna say I’ve seen it in a video game.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going home to give this present to my niece, have angry sex with my wife, and look for a new job.
Like you could even begin to blame me. Working here is like being in an endless, obscenely unfunny sitcom. Where everyone’s an exaggeration to the point of disbelief and heavy drinking just to keep things in perspective. Which is fun, for a little while, but you get tired of it really fast.
I think Sid’s just about the only one here with a fully functioning brain.
I don’t think he’s going to last much longer.
