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The Weekend John Mark Fullmer
Alex Callaghan stepped out of traffic onto the curb, facing the 43-story HighMark Industries office building. As he had done countless times before, Callaghan slid his card through the automatic reader to the right of the door and entered. He briskly greeted the on duty security guard standing in the lobby, “Morning.” “Good morning, Mr. Callaghan” the guard yawned. “What with this weather, though, it’s hard to tell if it’s day or night sometimes.” Callaghan moved quickly to the elevator, wondering if the enigmatic statements that the old man made were signs of lunacy or just idiocy. Rats. Rita Brooke, from Records, was getting in. For a moment he considered waiting for the next lift, but could feel the guard’s eyes tracking him, and -- too late! Rita had seen him. “Mr. Callaghan! Haven’t seen you for so long! They must be keeping you busy in Research.” Of all employees of HighMark Industries Inc., Callaghan thought, none could be more unpleasant to converse with than Rita. She was a little too happy, too urgent in her desire to colloquialize. She wore too much makeup and, being a little overweight, made up for it by dressing in disturbingly bright colors. It only served to make her figure more pronounced. He smiled uncomfortably, and mumbled something about the life of a businessman. “My husband has hardly any free time these days, too.” He pressed the button for floor number thirty-seven. “Have I told you? He’s in the delivery business...office supplies, technical equipment, the like. It’s not too classy, but he likes driving those big trucks.” Callaghan could understand why Mr. Brooke might like the schedule of a truck driver. Listening to Rita for too long must yield something akin to the feeling of seasickness, he thought. “But at least it’s Friday, Mr. Callaghan. We’ll have the weekend to relax. I am planning to visit the local chapter of the Ladies’ Club of.....” she plowed on. He wondered if she had an off switch. Finally the elevator stopped at floor number thirty-seven, and Mr. Callaghan disembarked. Making a stab at politeness, “Have a good day, Mrs. Brooke.” Rita aside, Mr. Callaghan was hoping to have a pleasant day today. Though his hair kept losing a battle with his comb, he had at least lost a few pounds in the last month. He was skipping lunch nowadays and cutting back on sandwiches at the nearby delicatessen. He had also recently enrolled in a judo class offered by the county, and enjoyed the feeling that every Tuesday night he gained a little more control over his body. His wife even seemed to kid him less about his belly. Turning down aisle after aisle of cubicles, Callaghan finally snuck into his own. Though it lacked a window view, he at least had a comfortable swivel chair. He opened his briefcase and flicked on the laptop. He noticed a newspaper lying on the floor below his desk. The furniture was made of that low quality pseudo-wood stuff -- he didn’t know what to call it -- companies buy when they’re trying to lower their overhead. He stooped slowly to pick up the paper -- someone must have thought his cubicle a trash receptacle -- the headline spoke of President Gore’s recent trip to China. He tossed it into the wastebasket in the hall. After settling himself back into his very comfortable swivel chair, he braced himself for a long day of research and data analysis. “Well at least it’s Friday,” he rationalized, “ and I can have two days of R&R.” The more he thought about it, he was sure this weekend would be great: he had decided to buy his wife a bouquet from the freeway vendor on the way home, and was even considering going to church - she had been begging him for months. It was time to take charge of his life, to become the man he had always dreamed of being, not a lowly number pusher in one of the countless downtown office buildings. Maybe he could even see one of those specialists about his hair; they had a number of techniques nowadays that could defy his merciless genes. At ten-thirty, Callaghan took his coffee break. Coffee was one of his few solaces in a never-ending tumult of stressful workdays. But even so, he had decided that this would be his last cup of coffee. He’d be more healthy and less edgy, and probably would be able to concentrate better. His wife always complained about his coffee breath, too. He was determined to become a new man, to live his dream, not just long for it. Walking past the rows and rows of cubicles, Callaghan felt different than all those others plugging away at their computers. He had ambition, something that he and all of his coworkers had forgotten a couple years into working for HighMark Industries. Carrying his styrofoam cup back to the cubicle, he pondered this, his last cup of coffee. He had started in his junior year of college, and by the time he got hired at HighMark 2 years later, the habit was firmly in place. Seventeen years of being a slave to that murky black liquid. Although if you put cream in it, it sort of swirls around for a bit, like the yin and the yang, and then settles into a chocolate brown color. Sugar didn’t make it look much different, just taste. It would be hard to give up what had become his life, but he was destined for bigger and better things. As he attempted to adjust himself back into his very comfortable swivel chair, some of the scalding coffee, which he was balancing in his hand, slipped over the edge and onto his knuckles. Natural reaction caused him to loosen his grip just enough to let the cup slip through his fingers and fall against the desk. The liquid ran in every direction, and when it reached the computer cables, a mildly loud pop sounded and the screen of his laptop went blank. Rats. No, worse than rats. Pigs. Big, dirty, loud ones. No worse than that. He had just lost two days of compiled research and computations. Elephants. A thundering herd of them, rushing right at him. And his legs stuck in the ground unable to move. Yes, Elephants summed it up. He could finish the research for the Monday deadline if he worked all weekend, or he could turn it in late. He scurried to the bathroom to get some paper towels. No paper towels left. He would have to use toilet paper. He rushed over to one of the stalls and began gathering a wad of the stuff. Walking back to his office, a woman glanced at the toilet paper in his hands with a quizzical and disapproving look. Callaghan felt self-conscious and silly. Gaining his cubicle once more, he proceeded to mop up his treasured brownish liquid. He was worried that the company might bill him for the stains. Would he have to get a new laptop? Oh, great! The carpet was ruined, too. But the more he thought about it, the less he cared. Life goes on, he thought, and if I’m late for my deadline, so be it. The rest of the day was spent in trying to decipher the numbers and figures on his coffee stained legal pad, but by the time he heard the scuffle of coworkers packing up and leaving for the day, he had little more data than when he had started on the project. But despite his misfortune, Callaghan was optimistic: this weekend would really be different. When he got into the elevator and saw Rita standing there, he even tried to be extra friendly: “You said you had plans for the weekend, Mrs. Brooke?” Her expression seemed to indicate shock - evidently it was a novelty for anyone to show interest in what she had to say. “Why, er, yes, Mr. Callaghan. As I was saying this morning, the Ladies’ Club is hosting a fashion show this weekend, and, well, I was thinking about trying to see if they’d let me model some of the dresses.” Callaghan bid goodbye to Rita when they stepped out of the elevator into the lobby, happy to know that she was happy. He made an effort to say something more to the funny old security guard: “Sure glad the week is over!” “You didn’t even notice how quickly it all went by, Mr. Callaghan.”
Herman Brooke sat in the cab of his delivery truck, fiddling with the radio. He was on his last delivery of the day, a shipment of paper towels to one of the downtown buildings. “.....was the prelude from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde....” the deep baritone voice of classical radio station host related. Mr. Brooke looked up from the controls --too late-- to see a slightly overweight, balding man, step off the curb in front of the vehicle.
The End |
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