Fat Bald Jeff Read online

  When Caligula had finished gorging himself, I told him about my computer and my inability to complete the assignment.

  He said, “Oh, that Jeff will have your computer up and running in no time.” I allowed myself a wry, knowing smile.

  “However,” he continued, “you might as well make yourself useful while he fixes it. Here.”

  He handed me a ticket stub and told me to go pick up his dry cleaning! I stared at him in shock. Was I now reduced to valet status? Correction: not even valet; this was clearly the humble task of the third footman.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. I could not even articulate my objection. “Oh,” he said after a moment. “You’ll need money.” And he withdrew a grubby bill from his nether regions.

  Feeling the bile rise up from the combination of menial chore, Coddles’s touch, and ham-on-white, I pocketed the cash and ran out of his office.

  “Don’t forget the change,” he called after me.

  I paused at my cubicle to rally. Facing me from beneath the computer desk was Jeff’s massive “plumber’s crevice.” Deliver me, Lord!

  I cleared my throat. “I have to step out for a moment. Coddles wants me to pick up his dry cleaning.” Fat Bald Jeff sat back on his considerable haunches and sighed. A greasy film covered his bulbous forehead. Dark rings formed at the armpits of his black T-shirt. His Levi’s strained at the thighs.

  “That’s all right,” he said, mopping his brow with a bandanna. “I have to run back down to tech support. I’m going to need tools.”

  This was an ominous decree, but I was not displeased. It foretold endless hours of not working on the Web project while Fat Bald Jeff tinkered inside my computer, muttering, “What’s this for?” and smashing things. The unpleasant picture it drew of a sweating, irritable Jeff defying the power of his deodorant was worth the time it would free up for me at the Place.

  The address on the ticket stub took me several blocks from the Place (curse you, Coddles) to a tailor/cleaner that I myself have patronized in the past. The tailor was a swarthy rascal I called “the Little Frenchman,” though there was something of the menacing Middle East about him. Truthfully, I’m not sure from whence he came, but—like the French—he speaks as though his mouth is stuffed with muffins. Anyway, one dusky foreigner is much like another.

  Although my old gray loafers were in need of minor cobbling and inappropriate for so much exercise, I rather enjoyed the heartiness of a spring walk. Grandmother and I used to walk the perimeter of her yard this time of year with notebook in hand, jotting down ideas for the perennial bed, noting which shrubs needed pruning, laughing at the hideous birdbath given to her by my parents many years ago. In the center, it bore a large, smiling she-frog wearing a bun hairdo and spectacles just like Grandmother’s.

  “Mother picked it out,” I had told her, but she said she had already guessed that. Mother’s taste has always been shockingly plebeian.

  The thought of Grandmother and the garden gave me a peculiar twinge. Not quite anger, but a kind of vague sorrow. This type of emotional contemplation can only set the digestive juices flowing the wrong way, so I quickly shut it from my mind.

  I handed the Little Frenchman the ticket. He returned with the garments, and I was grateful for the protective plastic bag that separated my skin from their fibers. I had no desire to touch any fabric that had ever rubbed against Coddles’s coarse flesh.

  The Little Frenchman winked at me. “They are for your husband, no?” I sent poison darts shooting from my eyes.

  “Au contraire, they belong to my boss,” I explained, lest even one insignificant person on this planet think that I willingly coupled with Coddles.

  He shrugged, handing me back the change and a sealed envelope. “Items he left in the pocket. I don’t want,” he said, as though he would be entitled to keep anything he found that he did want.

  I walked back toward the Place. I hoped that when I returned, Fat Bald Jeff would be weeping and sitting on the wreckage from my disemboweled computer, warranting me an early leave today. With some of the change from the Little Frenchman, I bought myself a lemonade at the Italian café next door to work. As I waited for the Italian behind the counter to properly crush the ice (I had to send it back twice), I looked at the sealed envelope in my hand. I thought, Why not? I could easily replace the envelope with a blank one from the supply closet, and Coddles would never know the difference.

  So I ripped it open. With interest, I removed a creased and sticky magazine photo of a plump, naked woman holding a martini glass under one droopy breast and leering walleyed in the general vicinity of the camera. I stared at the picture for some time, taking in its ample, disgusting value.

  “Ma’am?” shouted the soda jerk, loudly enough to make everyone else at the counter turn to look at me. He saw the picture and smirked, handing me the lemonade. I wanted to correct him, as I am obviously youthful enough to be called “Miss,” but he continued to stare as I fumbled with the money and pornography, so I just left without a word. I think I will write a letter to his superiors.

  Back on the second floor, I hesitated by the corner of our hallway. I caught a glimpse of Fat Bald Jeff tapping his hoof outside my cubicle. He looked rather agitated. But as I had nowhere else to go, I took a deep breath and turned down the corridor.

  “Hello, Addie,” he said as I neared. “I have to get these suits to Coddles,” I replied, trying to inch by.

  “I think,” he said, “you had better come in here first.”

  In my cubicle, the computer was entirely assembled and blinking obnoxiously at me. Jeff held out three inches of snipped red wire coated in nougat. I pretended to be shocked, but he held up a fat hand, stanching my performance. Then he motioned for me to follow him down the hallway to an unused company coat closet in the other wing. He called it his office and asked me to step inside. Then he closed the door behind us.

  “Hello,” I said, preparing for an onslaught of unnatural caresses.

  But he switched on a low-watt bulb and began speaking in a quiet voice. “Yes, hello. This was a very interesting problem. Very interesting indeed. The reason for your computer malfunction appears to be related to this length of wire and a Zero candy bar—one of my favorites. It seems that someone opened up your hard drive and severed—”

  I interrupted, pleading for mercy in a strained voice. If I were a spy, I would buckle instantly under any type of questioning!

  But Fat Bald Jeff merely smiled and whispered, “I’m somewhat impressed.”

  This stopped me instantly.

  “Oh, not at the amateurish, bungling sabotage,” he went on, “but at your complete disregard for authority and your employer’s property.”

  Haltingly, I replied, “Yes, well … down with the pig system and all that.”

  He sat on a box of old Christmas decorations, which groaned under his tonnage. “I had you pegged for a little brownnose yes-girl. But you seem to have a certain depth of depravity that I admire.”

  I sat opposite him on a stack of posters for the annual staff Hot Dog Day. “I do?”

  He nodded. “You don’t want to do your website project, do you?”

  It all came tumbling out: my hatred of the job, of the new tasks that would go unpaid; the lurching zombies, the pathetic pep rallies masquerading as staff meetings, the lousy Christmas parties, the bank art, the recycled air, the windows that refused to open, the buzzing fluorescent lights, the beige walls, my God the beige walls!

  “Are you going to turn me in?” I asked.

  “I’m not interested in punishing the weak. I have bigger plans. I am interested, however, in what you might do for me.” He leaned in expectantly.

  I considered my options; what had I to offer? Then it struck me. I handed him the envelope with Coddles’s nudie garbage, explaining its origin.

  Fat Bald Jeff nodded seriously. A fractured smile curved his mouth as he slid the envelope into his shirt pocket. He said he would help me with the Web project if I would help him
put a few ideas of his into motion. We struck a bargain. It was terribly exciting!

  Day’s end came quickly. I returned the dry cleaning to Coddles, who made me cough up the missing seventy-five cents I spent on lemonade. With a cursory glance at my bust, he sent me on my way. I had not really expected him to ask for the missing pornography but nevertheless felt relieved when I left the office.

  Of course, I got stuck next to a lunatic on the stinking bus. He smelled like the biohazard Dumpster and I sent him many disapproving looks throughout the ride. It all goes back to diet, and finally I gently informed him that a preponderance of junk in the intestines can only cause discomfort to the body and to those around it.

  He regarded me coldly, then stared straight ahead. Our society is in a shambles. Those of us with wisdom have a responsibility to share it with the unfortunates. But the unfortunates are always so damned ungrateful.

  Walking back to my building, the stench of the lunatic still floated around me. His smell had attached itself to my clothes. Tonight I would have to do laundry. I shook my head sadly, yet with infinite patience for the world’s idiots. I felt around in my bag for my keys, which must have gotten pushed to the bottom. The horrible smell doubled in intensity. I reached, grabbed hold of something, and pulled out—rancid tofurkey tarragon with havarti on millet bread!

  Chapter 4

  Val made us a delicious dinner. He rarely cooks in the middle of the week, and never for both of us, but he must have felt guilty for leaving me alone the past several nights while he and 2F gallivanted about town. He lingered by the doorway last evening as I scrubbed the baseboards inside the storage closet.

  “I’m just running up to the grocery store with the guys,” he said. “Need anything?”

  I crawled out of the closet to respond, but he’d already left, shut the door, and locked it. Val’s meaningless social conventions are so irritating. Anyway, tonight he made us a heavenly meal of poached sea bass with roasted red pepper sauce. He seemed appreciative of the culinary advice I offered, yet disregarded all my tips.

  We used Grandmother’s old Franciscan pattern china and Val’s prized smoked-glass NFL tumblers from the gas station. Val always gets the Bears glass, while I drink out of the Browns or sometimes the Steelers. I feel a kinship with those industrial giants and would never use the namby-pamby Miami Dolphins glass, with its hideous colors and dangerously chipped rim. The NFL tumblers are, to me, another sure sign of spring. Each September, Val packs them away with his summer clothes in a footlocker. He says they have to be put away before the Bears’ season starts, or he will end up breaking all the glasses in the set. During the winter we drink our vodka, milk, juice, and rum out of thrift-store ceramic mugs. I’m not fond of putting my mouth on strangers’ drinking vessels, but I can’t allow my collection of Fire King cups to be jeopardized by Val’s drunken flailing. Why, last summer Val and I often drove his 1972 Buick Electra down Michigan Avenue at midnight, tipsy on Bull’s Blood—a scandalous Hungarian red wine. He had his Bears tumbler in the car and stopped at each red light to swill the Bull’s Blood and shout “Chicago: hog butcher to the world!” out the window. I realize now how hazardous that could have been: he might have dropped the glass outside the car, and we never would have been able to replace it. Well, thank God the Fire King is safely stored away in the hutch. I will probably bring it out at my and the Lemming’s engagement party, provided the guests sign a waiver.

  After dinner, we retired to the living room. I offered Val dibs on the disco couch, but he said he was going to work on a project with 2F. That’s three nights this week he has abandoned me for them. I sniffed in response.

  “Oh, for cryin’ out Pete,” he said. “We’re just going to work in the yard. The landlord asked us to landscape a little and put in a garden. He’s paying for it.” I nearly seized up in shock, but Val missed my performance as he answered a knock at our door. Val Wayne, working with the earth! I don’t believe it. The closest Val has ever come to communing with nature was a furtive romp under our dead evergreens with some anonymous tart last August.

  He opened the door and there stood 2F, in all their snobby glory. In walked the Asian gentleman who had abused me for vacuuming the hall, followed by a sort of Teutonic masterpiece with the cheekbones of the impossibly well bred. Both wore pristine wheat overalls and rugged Eddie Bauer flannels and coats.

  “You know Chung and Stefan,” Val said. I bobbed my head like an imbecile and smiled stiffly.

  “Your mustache looks absolutely lush,” gushed Stefan.

  “Yes,” agreed Mr. Chung, “you look just like Billy Dee Williams.” Val nodded with a sidelong glance at me. The smug bastard! I told him not even a month ago that he bore a striking resemblance to Lando Calrissian, but he just laughed and said flattery would not get him to hand over the last airplane bottle of Stoli. Hmph. I was simply trying to initiate a friendly conversation about stupid space fiction.

  “Where are you going?” I asked in my smallest, least obtrusive, loneliest voice.

  They exchanged fearful glances and told me they were going to Home Depot for some gardening tools and good dirt. It would be no fun, they lamented, I would certainly be bored there.

  That’s true. It’s boring haggling with pimply teenage clerks over inferior shrubbery and complicated grout bags. I went into my room while the boys made a shopping list. Doesn’t Val know that my horticultural knowledge could be put to use in our yard? Doesn’t he care that old Gran has ripped away my usual summer garden project and I’m longing for fun times?

  Made up my mind to stay in my room until Val begged for help, but I heard the boys quibbling over the benefits of grafting apple trees onto pear-tree root stock, so I tiptoed out. They’d already started down the stairs, however, and I didn’t want to shout after them. Stinking 2F. It would be just like them to pervert the normal growth of tender saplings.

  Threw myself on my bed in a fit, but tantrum-ing isn’t much fun when you haven’t an audience. Began to feel quite alone in the world (the sensitive usually are), so I relented in my grudge against the old woman and called her. Her phone rang and rang, and I was convinced she was outside spreading mulch with that horticultural carpetbagger next door. But finally, she answered on the fourteenth ring. Her voice sounded crackly and paper-thin. She scolded me for calling so late (eight-thirty) and said she had to get up early for a doctor’s appointment.

  “Gran! What’s wrong? Should I come out there?” I asked in a panic. That trollop Fate was punishing me for my uncharitable thoughts about Grandmother!

  “Cataracts,” she said succinctly. “Nothing you can do. Doctor’s going to see how long we can stave off the inevitable.”

  Dear, brave Grandmother. I offered to steal Jann’s shabby station wagon, but she said my aunt Jane would drive her to the appointment. Aunt Jane is my father’s elder sister and disapproves of Mother heartily, yet we don’t get along. I don’t know why. Her family benefited greatly from Father’s desertion of the family pharmaceuticals firm, so she should be properly grateful that I am not out to reclaim my squandered inheritance.

  Grandmother reminded me repeatedly not to bother Mother about the doctor’s appointment or her generally deteriorating health or loneliness.

  “Do you know, I wandered out into the kitchen one night last week to get myself a cup of warm milk, and the next thing I knew, I was facedown in the boxwood,” she confided. “Don’t worry your mother about it. It’s just one of my spells.”

  Grandmother’s spells seem to occur after her nightcaps of warm milk. I suspect the milk is sour.

  With difficulty, I apologized to Gran for being mad at her about the garden. She said, “Pardon?” so often that I ended up saying I was sorry eighteen times before she understood me. Her hearing usually checks out when I need to apologize for something or thank her. The emotionally charged atmosphere wreaks havoc with her ancient ears.

  After hanging up, I called Mother and told her all about Grandmother’s eyes and decaying body
. She muffled the receiver with her hand, but I distinctly heard voices and Scandinavian braying. I think it’s disgraceful the way she neglects her dead husband’s mother. It’s one thing to abandon more distant relatives, but this one is her daughter’s own Gran! You’d think that alone would endear the old lady to Mother, but it actually seems to repel her further.

  “After all, Mother, I do have some of Grandmother’s blood running through my veins,” I said reproachfully.

  She sighed. “Addie, I wouldn’t be surprised if your veins run with vinegar.”

  I didn’t know if she was implying that I’m an alcoholic or merely vitriolic, but I knew that I was insulted.

  Turned out the light and tried to cry into my pillow, but it’s awkward for me to weep when I can’t see what I’m doing. I turned the light back on, which helped a little. Then I panicked because I remembered I had just restuffed my pillow with buckwheat hulls and didn’t know if salt water would harm them. A girl can’t have decent histrionics when constantly beset with domestic worries.

  Heard the pitiful, desperate whining of a dog outside. Looked out my bedroom window and saw a small white pup in a cage on the fire escape of the building next door. Felt sad for him. Here we were, two creatures abandoned by humanity, left to cry alone in the night. I opened the window a crack so that I could utter a few soothing words to him across the gangway, just like prisoners of war sequestered in different stalags. But before I could think of something appropriate to say, a man stomped out onto the fire escape and dumped a bucket of water on top of the dog and yelled at it to shut up. I jumped back into bed, threw the down comforter over my head, and trembled a bit. What kind of a society are we living in?

  Another workshop with the Jeffs. As promised, Fat Bald Jeff did my sample assignment at his computer and e-mailed it to me. I wonder what I will have to do for him in return? We never quite discussed what part I would play in his plans, or what he meant by “putting his ideas into motion.” Some kind of menial task, I expect, like petitioning the management to serve cocktail weenies at the Christmas party instead of stale crullers. I forwarded the sample Web assignment on to Coddles as though I had worked on it myself. I am getting better at this technology. I feel sorry for people who are too stupid to use the computer. It can simplify one’s life so much.