A Thousand Words About Nothing

One

Jim exhaled slowly as smoke from a recently lit Camel Light billowed from his nose and mouth. He hadn’t smoked in something like 10 years but he couldn’t remember exactly how long it had been. His last smoke before today was at a summer barbecue thrown by his neighbor, Ken, whose mother had been fighting cancer and struggled for every breath. Jim threw away a half-finished pack of Marlboro reds that night, thinking that his only daughter Melanie would be better off if he wasn’t six feet under. Now, sitting in the dark, alone but for the smoke, cancer seemed the least of his problems.

He put the cigarette to his lips and drew again, watching the dull orange glow brighten and consume a tiny stretch of the cigarette’s wrapper. It was so quiet here; quiet enough that he could hear the soft crinkling sound of the paper burning. He found it somewhat comforting. It reminded him of the more carefree days of his youth, days that he typically ended with a smoke alone in the dark. Now was not then, though, and now was all he had. It was almost enough to make him hyperventilate again.

If only Horton hadn’t been such a jackass, if only he himself had tried a little harder, if only he wasn’t constantly under so much pressure, if only he had pursued his real dream of music instead of getting a marketing degree and the dreaded Real Job. There were so many “ifs”. They were meaningless, of course, but it was impossible to ignore them. One or two things done or said differently might have made a completely different day. That’s not how things worked, of course, and there was no changing what happened now; that ship had sailed.

Today was supposed to be nothing special. At least not until after work, when Jim was planning to take advantage of the fact that Kate and Melanie and gone to New Jersey for a visit with the old mother-in-law. His workday itself, though, was going to be like the countless Thursdays that had come before it. There was the 10:00 staff meeting, lunch at 11:30 or noon, and then an afternoon alternating between daydreaming, Freecell, and paperwork. The hardest part of today would be over with the staff meeting.

Jim Johnson didn’t miss meetings. In fact, he usually liked meetings. They were a good time to fantasize about playing bass full-time in some kind of middle-aged guy band that did covers of the Eagles and Doors in smoky, half empty bars on Friday nights. He arrived for Horton’s weekly ten o’clock staff meeting promptly at 9:55, giving a few minutes to beat the others. He liked to make sure he got one of the upholstered reclining chairs at the meeting room table rather than one of the generic plastic jobs that lined the outside wall of the room.

Peter Horton was a man whose star was on the rise. He was probably only a few years older than Jim, but he certainly did not lack for ambition, charm, or persistence, and had, not coincidentally, moved rather quickly up the ladder towards a coveted Director’s chair. Jim figured him for a Directorship sometime in the next 3 years, and that looked more realistic every day. Horton had recently been given the Wilson contract to manage in addition to the Thompson account he already handled. Accordingly, his staff had doubled to reflect the expansion, which made his staff meetings a crowded affair; he liked to have all his underlings in the room at once. The meeting had lately carried a kind of “king in court” feel to it, as if Horton was sitting the throne before his serfs. That meant fairly little to Jim, who had no real goals to speak of beyond a paycheck and the 401k. What was important, though, was that if you were late to the meeting, it was a plastic chair along the outside of the room. Jim had eaten at the kiddies’ table on special occasions at Grandma’s until he was nearly 19 years old; relegation to the plastic side chairs was much too similar to that.

Unfortunately, Jim apparently wasn’t the only one who had had enough of kiddies’ table meals at Grandma’s house. When he got to the meeting, the table was completely occupied, and by the new Wilson people no less! Seething, Jim picked a chair along the wall that would at least be mostly behind Horton. If he couldn’t have a comfortable chair, at least he could escape notice.

Horton strode into the room at 10:03, his disheveled assistant Sarah a step behind. He sat down at the head of the table, which remained empty, and wasted no time. “All right, people, let’s get started,” he said as he placed his hands flat on the smooth, glassy surface of the meeting room table, one on either side of a notepad folder. Horton looked up and glanced around the room, taking stock of everyone present. “Where’s Johnson?” he asked, not seeing Jim behind him.

“Behind you Peter,” Jim replied.

“Don’t sit back there next time, Jim, I like to look my people in the eye,” Horton chided.

Jim’s cheeks colored and he grunted in assent. “Ok, great.” Horton continued. “I looked over that new Q4 proposal for Thompson that you put together, and I have to say, I’m a bit disappointed. Thompson needs something stronger, something with teeth. This thing isn’t going to get it.” He picked up a collection of papers from the folder in front of him and flung it towards Jim unceremoniously. “I made some suggestions there in red. I need a new draft Monday. The Directors are all over me to get it out the door and over to Thompson. They think we can pull some extra revenue this quarter.”

Jim caught the flailing duck of papers, smashing most of them in the process. Brow furrowed, he tried to put everything back together in the right order while smoothing the wrinkles. Had Peter gone completely insane? It was Thursday morning! A rewrite by Monday was impossible, unless he was exaggerating the extent of the changes needed. “Monday, um, I’m not sure Monday is realistic,” Jim started, lining up rationales for why he would need a week to address whatever concerns lay waiting in red ink.

“I know, Johnson, nobody likes working the weekend. I’m sorry. I don’t like asking you to kill yourself over this thing, but I need you to kill yourself over this thing. I’ll need daily updates too. I’ll be on my boat at the lake all day Saturday, and my PDA gets a pretty decent signal out there, so make sure you keep me in the loop. We’ve got to get this thing right this time.”

Defeated, Jim had little choice but to acquiesce. “Um, uh, yeah, okay. I guess Monday it is,” he replied sullenly. Deep inside, he fumed. The staff meeting was no place for this kind of discussion, especially if there was a problem with the original draft. Horton could have chosen a much less public place to talk about it, had he wanted. But this? This was humiliating. And then for him to follow that up with a request for a huge weekend effort? It was ludicrous. Worse, the entire exchange made Jim feel like a dog that had pissed on the Master’s good carpet, being held nose down in the puddle. His leg bounce kicked in almost immediately, a stupid unconscious habit that crept in whenever his stress level got too high. The warmth of his growing anger colored his neck and ears. Trying to suppress an outburst, he read the red remarks left in the original draft but couldn’t concentrate on the words, indignant thoughts kept getting in his way. At least looking at the edited draft prevented him from seeing the amused smiles on the faces all around the shiny table.

The meeting ran long after that, as everyone brought Horton up-to-date on their little piece of his domain. He liked to take an active role in his people’s work and had at least some minor comments for everyone in the room when their turn came around. By the time Jim returned to his piddling little cubical in the middle of the Horton-owned portion of what he would always think of as “cube-ville”, it was nearly time for lunch.

Jim flopped into his swivel chair and exhaled with agitation. He picked up a pen and starting tapping the end against a legal pad sitting on his desk, staring vacantly at his grey cubicle wall.

Jim’s cubicle was almost entirely devoid of any personal touches. He hadn’t hung any posters or certificates, or added anything that might personalize his desk. No clock, nameplate, little toy or figurine that many other employees seemed to like. He told himself it wasn’t worth the effort, but really, he couldn’t bring himself to make any kind of investment in the place. The only thing indicating that an actual human worked in his space was a 5x7 of his daughter Melanie in a gold frame surrounded by lilies and vines. Kate had bought the frame, made him take it to work, and sent a replacement picture to the office with him every so often. If not for his wife, he wouldn’t even have that.

A tall man about Jim’s age stepped into the cube and sat down in the one extra chair that fit in the cubicle. His jet black hair was starting to go grey at the sideburns, but odds were good he had few years before it would be greyer than it was black. Ethan Turner had attended the same college as Jim, and the two had taken a majority of their business classes together back in “The Day”. Truth be told, if it weren’t for Ethan, Jim might not have managed to ever finish those classes. Turner was a serf with a different master, and typically exhibited enough competence that it was likely he would one day make the leap from vassal to liege, his close association with Jim notwithstanding. “Hey, Jim, I’m hungry, you ready for lunch?” Turner asked as he sat down.

“Fuck no,” Jim replied sullenly. “Fartin' One just reamed me in the staff meeting in front of the whole goddamm group and then stuck me with a weekend project. Unless I want to be sitting here Sunday afternoon, I’ll be skipping lunch out today.”

“That sucks, dude. Sounds like you just got both ends of the beater stick,” Turner said.

“Undoubtedly,” Jim scowled. “And the best part is that I’ve got to send the bastard updates to his Treo while he tools around the lake on his boat this weekend.” The last few words were nearly a curse.

“You’re kidding? Unbelievable. Want me to get the fellas together and have a little talk with ole Horton, man-to-bat?”

Jim chuckled. “I guess not. It’s not a bad idea, but with my luck it’d come back to me sooner or later. I tell you what, though; it wouldn’t bother me if something weird got him. I wish a fucking boat would fall on his ass or something. I wouldn’t cry over that.”

Darrin, the new intern, popped his head around the doorway to Jim’s cubicle. “Guys, I’m making a run to the deli, did I hear you say you wanted something?”

Turner and Jim looked at each and grimaced, neither certain of what the intern had or had not heard. Turner took the chance to leave for lunch, “No thanks, Darrin, I’m just heading out myself. Jim, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Sure, Turner,” Jim replied as the taller man walked away. “And, yeah, Darrin, I asked for something. I guess I’ll be getting a sandwich or something. Where are you going?”

The rest of day was a kind of red-tinged blur. As Jim sorted through Horton’s suggested edits for the proposal, he realized that he was going to end up completely re-doing it. What really galled was that Horton didn’t just want different ideas; he was also being quite picky about specific wording. In fact, many of Jim’s original ideas remained untouched, but the boss had added new twists to them, new complications. Peter had said when Jim first took the assignment that this was just a high-level "concepts" proposal, and to keep the complex stuff out of it. Apparently that had changed. As he walked to his decidedly lame five year-old subcompact sedan, he wondered why Horton hadn’t just written the damn thing himself. By the time he finished with the edits plus the inevitable comments from the boat over the weekend, he was sure he wouldn’t have too many unaltered words left in the thing.

Jim sat in the car for a few minutes, running through some breathing exercises he had learned from a short stint in a yoga class he had taken with his wife a few years ago. At least he could go home and enjoy himself tonight without interruption from wife or daughter.

Pulling out of his parking space, he noticed a longer line than usual running up to the light at Winston Avenue, which led to the highway and home. “What the fuck is this?” he growled.

As he rolled towards the light at Winston, though, his jaw flapped open of its own accord. At the traffic light, cars making right turns were forced to veer into the straight-or-left-turn lane to get around what appeared to be a 25 or 30 foot long, white, splintered boat sitting in the turn lane. There was no towing rig, any car or truck to pull it, just a boat resting on its hull. He could just make out the words “Sadie’s Surprise” across its back.

“Now there’s something you don’t see everyday,” Jim said to himself aloud. He reached for his cell-phone, hoping he could remember how to use it to take pictures. He hand froze when he saw the car.

Not far from the boat, still partially obscured by a few bushes on the right-hand shoulder beside the turn lane was a banged up car. No, actually, not a banged up car, a banged-up Porsche. A Porsche was no ordinary car. Jim wondered for a second if it was a 944 or a 911, or maybe a 976 or a 1-900. Hell, he didn’t know one expensive-ass car from the next. Cars like that were for guys with big bank accounts and egos that liked attention. What he did know for sure was that it looked a whole lot like the car Peter Horton covered with a tan tarp on days when the blonde weather bimbo on channel 7 called for rain. “No, no, no,” Jim said, unconvincingly, “that can’t be.” He inched his lame sedan closer to the accident. A sickening knot tightened in his stomach when he recognized the familiar vanity plate on the Porsche’s rear end, “PHRTN 1”.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Jim saw what had happened to the entire driver’s side of the car and his shitty, three-dollar-and-fifty-cent turkey-on-wheat lunch started climbing up his throat. He rolled closer and closer, staring at the mangled car like an insect near a porch light. When he was close enough to see the blood and tangles of hair on the window and car frame, he couldn’t keep from vomiting. He gagged his lunch out into the passenger seat while a single thought ran through his head over and over and over.

A fucking boat fell on Peter Horton.
A fucking boat fell on Peter Horton.
Holy shit! A fucking boat fell on Peter Horton.

(c) 2005 Jason A. Rust. All rights reserved.

Anything I ever really want to say, I've said at my other website, PuddinTopia.