I’ve become the protagonist from the comedies of my youth: a middle-aged, entitled white male having a hilariously difficult time.
I devour a stick of butter on the way to my third job. It’s all I have time for. I work so much I’m unaware of my body. I arrive at the job site amidst the departure of ambulances and chaperoned rides. I pull up to the building and take a generous slurp of water from the hose attached to an outdoor faucet. I’m too concerned to use the drinking fountain inside because everyone here is diseased. I get water all down the front of my heavily stained shirt.
Someone laughs at me. Alarmed, I look toward the sound. My first feeling is panic because I know I’m probably not supposed to be drinking out of the hose on the side of the building. I immediately relax. It’s just Buddy. Buddy’s sitting at the company picnic table draining his leg.
“Pretty thirsty, huh?” He’s squeezing his calf, a viscous red-yellow ooze running from his leg and into the grass.
“Parched,” I say. “How was it today?”
He locks eyes with me, all joviality gone. “You’ve got your work cut out for you.”
This is not at all what I want to hear.
“I guess we’d better get to it.” I stare at the last drips of bloody pus dropping from his leg. He gives it a shake.
“Let me get wrapped up.”
He expertly wraps his calf before sliding his socks and Crocs back on. I have to wait for him to get into the building. I’m only a contract employee. Buddy’s shorter and wider than me and I find it fascinating to watch him move. His feet make a squelching sound when he walks.
He uses a fob to unlock the door and I follow him in, watching his socks darken with ooze.
“Wish I didn’t have this fuckin’ diabetes,” he says.
I’m only here once every couple of weeks so Buddy says the same things every time. No one has any memory anymore. I know what he’s going to say next.
“Wish I’d gotten one of those fun diseases.”
I always remember what he’s going to say. I never have any idea what he’s talking about. I’ve worked so many hours and listened to so many people I can only remember the most random snippets of things.
He opens the janitor’s closet and turns the light on the mop bucket and all the other cleaning supplies. I push the bucket under the faucet and begin running hot water.
“What’s your idea of a fun disease?”
Buddy, breathing heavily, leans against the doorframe and says, “Terry’s got cancer pretty bad. He’ll probably get to go to Disneyland or some shit.”
“I think that’s Make-a-Wish or something. He’s probably too old for that.”
“She.”
“Sorry. She.” I have no idea who he’s talking about.
Buddy shrugs. “At least she’ll get good drugs. What about you? You got any diseases?” He watches me dump some soap into the water. “Yeah, look at you. I bet you got a real fun one.”
“The only disease I have is poverty,” I say.
“That’s no fun. Pretty much the opposite. And it’s not a disease. It’s like … a condition or something.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m brain damaged.”
He whistles. “Now that can be a good one. I had a cousin with brain damage. He got to do whatever he wanted. Still does, I guess. Spends his days eating onions, beatin’ off, and watchin’ porno. Hardly ever even has to take a shower.”
“It’s probably the only thing keeping me from killing myself when I leave here.”
“The poverty?”
“No. The brain damage.”
“Hell yeah. You should focus on that one. It sounds more fun.”
I turn off the water and toss a rag in to soak.
“Okay,” I say. “Show me what I’m dealing with.”
“Like I said, it’s been a tough week.” He waits for me to wheel the mop bucket out of the janitor’s closet. “We should probably check out Carol’s cube first.”
The first thing I notice in Carol’s cube is all the blood. A few puddles of it are pooled on her otherwise fairly clean desk. In the middle of each pool of blood is an exceptionally large tooth.
As though seeing the teeth has sparked some kind of memory, Buddy’s finger is stuck way back in his mouth trying to dislodge something.
When he notices me staring at him, he says, “Carol has too many teeth. Like sixty or something. Every now and then it gets uncomfortable and she has to remove one. Our insurance is so bad she can’t afford to keep going to the dentist to have it done.”
We fall silent, standing shoulder-to-shoulder under the harsh fluorescent lights, gazing into Carol’s cubicle.
The cubicle next to Carol’s is remarkably clean.
“This should be easy,” I say. The only things I notice are a mouse that’s turned in an awkward way and a thin layer of dust over the monitor screen.
“Yeah, this is Bryce’s. I guess he has one of the more fun diseases.”
“What’s he got?”
“He shits gum. Says it’s delicious. Lotta people here chew it. I can’t bring myself to do it, even though he cleans it up real good. Probably my diabetes. I need more sugar in my gum. He runs a pretty good side hustle with it too. Big Bryce’s Natural Chewables. I guess he can’t legally call it gum, since no one really knows what it is. Lucky bastard. Says he never has to wipe.”
Buddy takes a couple steps back and I follow him as he squelches to the other side of the cube quad.
“What do you guys do here?” I’ve never asked this question before or, if I have, I don’t remember.
“We’re not allowed to talk about it. All of us regular employees had to sign an NDA—that’s a non-disclosure agreement.”
Buddy’s never condescended to me before but I bristle at the elitism and condescension in what he just said. He exudes it. I have a momentary urge to hit him with the mop handle but know I wouldn’t feel good about myself if I did.
I say only “Hm.” Looking around, it’s the most generic office I’ve ever been in. Everything is beige and the flooring, cubes, and desks are the cheapest money can buy. The only things hanging on the walls are large photographs of the employees, all of them smiling awkwardly in front of the same outdated background. I see a woman with teeth uncontained by her mouth and think that must be Carol. I could just wait until Buddy leaves and rummage through the desks but there are cameras everywhere and I badly need this job to afford to make it to all my other jobs so I’ll probably just have to remain in the dark.
We get to the next cube. Everything in it is covered in a bright yellow-green dust. There’s a distinct but not immediately identifiable odor coming from it. It’s not unpleasant.
“This is Darren’s cube,” Buddy says.
“What’s wrong with him?”
Buddy sighs. “We don’t think people have things wrong with them. I mean just look at Bryce—”
“Who?”
“The gum guy. He’ll be a millionaire soon because of his condition. That certainly doesn’t sound like he has something wrong with him. Am I wrong because of my diabetes? Are you wrong because of your brain damage?”
Upon concluding, Buddy has to rest his meaty arm on top of one of the cubicle walls as though he’s delivered a lengthy and important speech.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “You’re right. You know, I’m not actually brain damaged.”
“Now you’re getting it,” Buddy says. “You’re brain enhanced. The parts you’re missing is what makes you special.”
We’re silent for a few seconds. I tune in to a sound of running water and have no idea where it’s coming from.
I come back around and say, “So what makes Darren special?”
“He has tennis elbow … pretty much daily. He develops a modest-sized tennis ball at his elbow and it usually explodes around four to four-thirty every day. Gives the whole office a real jolt.”
I take another deep breath. That’s the unidentifiable odor. Tennis balls. Grassy. Felty. A hint of garage and compressed air.
“So what’s next?” I say.
Buddy takes a couple steps back and squelches sideways to the next cube. There’s a pungent body fluid or animal odor coming from it although it looks relatively tidy.
“This is Lorraine’s area,” Buddy says. “She gives birth to an adorable litter of puppies almost once a week.”
The sound of running water is louder. I’m focusing on the sound as I say, “It looks pretty clean.”
“Oh, she always eats the placenta and cleans them up really good.”
“What does she do with them?”
“Gives some of them away. The ones she can. Pretty sure she eats the rest. Most of them are … distempered.”
I find this penultimate bit of information oddly exhilarating. I think about asking Buddy to point her out to me on the wall of photos but it feels like an invasion of privacy. Or maybe it would ruin the mystery. I know I’ll think about Lorraine until that part of my brain is trampled by other, more important, things to think about.
“Not sure how fun that sounds,” I say. “But, right, probably fucking adorable.”
More running water. Louder now.
Buddy raises his eyebrows and says, “They are not cute.”
“All right. What’s next?”
Buddy places his hands over his stomach and says, “I need to excuse myself.”
“How many people work here?” I scan back into the building, unable to remember how many cubes there are. All the lines of cube quads, mysteries in the dark.
Buddy, already walking away rapidly, says, “We have one hundred employees.”
Buddy goes into the restroom and I go back to where I left my mop bucket and rag at Carol’s cube. I pick the teeth out of the congealed blood and give them a quick clean in the mop bucket before putting them in my pocket. I don’t use gloves or anything because my goal is a quick death to escape from having to do this kind of thing every day. I wonder what Carol’s doing right now. Probably home with her family. I wonder if they have too many teeth too. Maybe it’s genetic. Fuck. I’m going to be here all night.
Buddy doesn’t come back.
Nor does the sound of running water. I miss it. I found it soothing.
I finish the four cubes Buddy showed me and figure he must have gone home. I’m glad. I don’t like to work when people are standing over me. Plus, I can half-ass everything and try to get out before dawn so I can get back to my studio apartment and decide whether or not I want to drink, jerk off, or sleep before going to my next job.
I turn the rest of the lights on and quickly work my way down the remaining cubes. Buddy’s not here to tell me about the fun diseases his fellow workers have and my brain doesn’t work well enough to come up with a reason for the state of some of their cubicles. Many of them are alarmingly clean. One is covered in what looks like pink spray paint. Stalks of corn grow from soil in one of them. I do some light pruning but leave it mostly as is. Another one is soaking wet. I throw all the electronics in the trash and dry it as best as possible. Another is filled with scabs. One has empty water bottles covering every surface.
I get to the last one and it’s filled with bones. Probably a whole skeleton’s worth. I leave it as is.
I turn off the lights and clean my rag and mop bucket in the janitor’s closet.
I walk toward the restroom and realize I don’t have to use it since my body is in a state of near-permanent dehydration and I partake of very little solid food.
I turn to head toward the front door when I hear someone, probably Buddy, say, “Hey. You still here?”
I’m surprised. Buddy is usually long gone by this hour. At least, I’m pretty sure he is. I think about pretending not to hear him and continuing on, but maybe he needs my help.
I open the bathroom door to find Buddy on the floor. He’s filling the floor, spread all over like a big, blubbery carpet.
His head, leaning against a rubber baseboard, looks disembodied. His eyes are alight with an excitement I don’t think I’ve ever seen them possess.
“I think I’ve developed a fun disease,” he says.
I’m tired and want to go home. I’ve been cleaning up after people’s diseases for the past eight hours and want to go home and continue to contribute to my own various diseases, none of them fun.
“What’s that?” I say.
He opens his eyes wide and pushes his head toward his expansive body.
“I’m a waterbed,” he says.
“Hm,” I say.
“Try me out. You’ll be the first. It’s Saturday now. No one comes to the office on a Saturday, no matter what disease they have.”
“I have to go to my next job soon.”
“Come on,” Buddy says. “A little nap won’t kill you. I know you’re tired. All that cleaning.”
He’s right. I am tired. And he does look comfortable. Like I could just sink right into him. He’ll be warm against the chill of the overly air-conditioned office. His breathing will rock me to sleep like a baby.
I notice the sound of running water again. It’s coming from Buddy.
“Only an hour or so.”
“Hop right on,” he says.
I don’t really hop. It’s more of a collapse. I’m asleep before I know it. I sleep for a full twenty-four hours, waking up on Sunday morning. It’s the best sleep I’ve ever had. It doesn’t even matter I’ve probably been fired from all four jobs I was supposed to work and will most likely be unable to pay rent.
Before we leave, I drain him into the toilet and gag several times.
