Office Noir

It was raining outside, the wind lashing curtains of water against the windows in a thrashing frenzy, trying to beat a way inside.  I was sat at my desk, illuminated by the harsh glare of the flat-screen monitors, the pallor of my skin rivalled only by the empty whiteness of the spreadsheet in front of me.  Two black numbers floated in a sea of vacant cells, and nothing I could do could make them any better.  Somewhere on the floor above there was the distant sound of a door slamming and then a single, solitary scream like the call of a cormorant, and I knew that the Managing Director had cut short the Executive Committee meeting in his inimitable style once again.

I clicked once on the mouse, closing down the spreadsheet and revealing beneath it the GANTT chart that had lead me to open up the spreadsheet tool.  The little blue lines showing who would do what work and when stretched off to the right in a never-ending regimented march, spilling beyond the deadline and then beyond.  I looked at the figures for the fiftieth time that morning, and finally accepted what had been obvious all along.  I could not deliver this project on time.

I felt the cold chill of a ghost walking across my grave.  There was only one way to present this to the Executive Committee that wouldn’t get me called into the Managing Director’s office to explain myself, and that was circumstance that were clearly beyond my control.  An earthquake and a failed disaster recovery plan might do the trick.  Or burning the office down.  Or….

I crossed myself as I opened the browser and selected the secure browsing mode, aware that the IT department would see it immediately.  After all, why would you go secure unless you had something to hide?  I opened up the Pinterest site and then clicked quickly on fifteen different links, opening them all in new tabs.  Then knowing that they’d be checking them all to see what I was trying to hide, I opened up the standard browser and selected the special site.  The one they only whisper to you on the project management course when they’ve tested your loyalty (don’t ask how) and they’re sure that you’ve got the nerve to go and look at it.  That one.

I entered the name of my lead developer and crossed myself once again.  The little dialogue box opened, with the plain black border and the tiny skull in the bottom right corner.  The single text entry box was waiting, as I knew, for a date.  I entered today’s date, and a time for just after lunch.  As soon as I’d entered the last digit the box closed and the browser promptly caused the computer to crash.

“What were you doing when the computer crashed?” asked the IT tech as he stood next to me, watching the computer power-up again.  He’d appeared without being called.  “Looking at Pinterest,” I said, knowing that they knew that.  He was clearly here to find out if I’d been trying to get to anywhere that they’d not logged yet.

“Boring,” he said dismissively, but his eyes were watching me the whole time.  I was sweating.

“There were pictures of a renaissance fayre on there,” I said.  I’d done my homework too, and I knew that he liked live action role-playing and spanking.  I hadn’t dug deep enough to find out if he combined the two.

“Oh?”  He pretended he wasn’t interested, but his eyes drifted away from me.

“You know, women dressed in gauzy costumes,” I said, hinting that I might have been perving just a little.

“Still boring,” he said, but he walked off before the computer finished booting up, and I knew he was going back to the log files to look for those pictures.  He’d be back when he couldn’t find them, but that was fine.  I didn’t think he’d get back fast enough.

At two thirty-five a man dressed like a ninja walked in through the door, tail-gating behind the lifer-coder who microwaved fish curry in the tiny kitchen every lunchtime purely to annoy the people in the office.  The lifer didn’t challenge him, or even turn round.  The ninja raised a hand and a crossbow appeared in it like he was performing a magic trick.  There was the thunk of the crossbow firing, and my lead developer fell face-forward onto his keyboard, the back of his head a bloody red mess.  I counted to five and started screaming.

“It’s very strange,” said Miss McIntosh, head of the Executive Committee, “but that computer crash of yours… somehow it managed to make it look as though your GANTT chart updated to accommodate the death of your lead developer fifteen minutes before he was killed.”

“I was looking at porn at that time,” I said.

Coffee morning

She's thinking about her homework; she left the book on the breakfast counter instead of putting in her bag, and now she's thinking that if she hadn't done that, she could be doing her homework now.  It's boring, but it's surface level.  There'll be something more interesting a little deeper.  And so I push....
Ah, now we have something.  A figure, male maybe?  They usually are.  He comes into focus briefly and then shudders and hazes out again.  She doesn't want to think about him, which makes me all the more curious, so I push a little harder.
Ah, resolution at last.  It's not a man, it's a woman, a little older than her, wearing a bra and a skirt with toothpaste stains near the knee.  Ah, there's a toothbrush in her mouth as well, and a little foam on her lips.  She's leaning over the book on the counter, and spit-and-toothpaste are dripping on the book.
"Whatcha readin' this for, Marry?" she says.  "I thought we agreed it out; you're just clever enough as you are."
The woman hazes out again and a I feel a little pressure back.  She really doesn't like thinking about this woman.  I wonder about her name briefly, and then realise that with an American accent Mary can become Marry.
"I saw you looking over at me," says a light voice, just a hint of a tremor in it.  Someone nervous, not used to approaching strangers.  I open my eyes, and the girl whose thoughts I've been dipping into is standing on the other side of the café table, her satchel hanging loosely from her hand by its strap.  She's favouring her left leg, and to compensate she's tilted her head slightly to the right.  Her eyes are brown, wide and sparkly, and her skin looks soft.
"I looked at everybody, darlin'," I say, broadening my speech into a drawl, going for somewhere in the Deep South.  It was a stupid idea really, I can't keep an accent up for long, just like I can't keep myself from popping into people's thoughts for long either.
"I saw that too," she says.  "Is this seat taken?"  She gestures with casual indifference, someone who's sitting down because it's easier than standing.  Not yet inviting herself into my company, still waiting for an offer.
"Only by any as wants it," I say.  That doesn't sound right to my ears, so I throw a "Y'all" on to the end of it.  That sounds worse, but she doesn't seem to notice.  She sits down, shuffling the seat so that its rusted metal feet scrape on the scored tiles on the floor.
"I think I know you," she says now, leaning in to me slightly, her eyes raking across my face with an intensity that makes me sit back and sit up, stop slouching and start paying more attention.  There's something very intense about this woman.  "I think I dreamt about you.  Last night."
I force a smile, and then a laugh.  It sounds hollow, and I hope she doesn't notice.  "I should think you'd have better things to dream about than me," I say.  "I'm just passing the time here in the warm until they kick me out in the cold, and then I'll find another café and another coffee.  I sometimes think I'm just waiting here in this life holding a place for someone else, someone who's a little late to the party."
She's not listening, she's still searching my face, looking for something, so I dip back into her thoughts to see what she's looking for.
Oh sweet Jesus, she did dream about me last night, the dream is uppermost in her mind right now.  There I am, lying on my back on some kind of hospital gurney, strapped down at the wrists and ankles, and the woman with the toothpaste is leaning over me holding a knife of some kind.  She's saying something, but I can't hear what she's saying, there's too much noise, a siren of some kind, blaring like an emergency klaxon.  I look around, wondering where the woman I'm talking to is – people always inhabit their own dreams, whether they realise it or not – but I can't find her.  The toothpaste woman raises her arm and her sleeve falls back slightly, revealing a tattoo on her wrist, three numbers: 616.
"I dreamt you and I were in a library," she says, and I'll pulled back out of her thoughts to find that she's now looking down at the table top and talking to me.  Lying to me.  "You were showing me a book you thought I'd like."
"Well now, that can't be me," I say.  "I can't read, never have been able to.  My Mammie didn't feel that letters and numbers were entirely holy, for all that the Bible she slept with used them freely.  All that educatin' stuff was for God, and not for His children."
"The library is two blocks from here," she says, still not looking up.  "I thought... I know it sounds strange, but in the dream I really, really wanted that book.  Would you... would you mind coming with me?  It'll only take a few minutes, and perhaps that book is important to me."
She reaches out for my hand, and in doing so reveals her wrist.  A tattoo is there, the numbers 919.
"And how many names do you have?" I say softly, my voice barely more than the exhalation of air.
She looks at me, aware that she's somehow revealed herself without knowing how, and her face twists into a snarl.  She seizes my coffee cup and throws the contents into my face; the stone-cold coffee splashes like a fragrant wave on a choppy sea, and then I'm on my feet and running for the door.

Don't cry for me

The gate creaked in the wind, swinging on rusted hinges.  She'd meant to oil them today.  She'd meant to oil them yesterday too, and the day before that, and the day before that... the days all stretched back until they became a long dark tunnel that she'd been walking through forever.  The oil was on the shelf exactly where Homion had left it when he'd left.  All she had to do was stand up, get it, and oil the hinges on the gate.
She didn't stand up, just as she hadn't any of those nights in the past.  She was sitting down now, in a chair that her grandmother had bequeathed to her when she died, the only chair in the three-room hovel that she felt comfortable in.  The upholstery – she whispered the word to herself like a charm, Homion had hated her using words he didn't understand – was threadbare in too many places and coarse white stuffing kept pulling free and collecting on the floor, in the corners and underneath the broken-legged coffee table.  She should get rid of the coffee-table too.  Homion had brought it back one night from a bar, won in a poker game of all things.  It had stains on it that she'd never been able to scrub out and didn't match anything else in the room.  She'd throw it out right after she oiled the hinges of the gate.
She tugged her knees up to her chest and listened to the hinges creak.  The wind was getting up again, and bringing a breath of chilliness into the house with it.  She thought about staying here, sleeping in the chair again, but her back was hurting and it was always worse when she spent the night in the chair.  Tomorrow, at the Laundro-tastic, she was on the ironing duty and although it was easier than when she had to do the service washes, hauling piles of wet clothes from washer to wringer, and bending over sorting the whites and the coloureds – mustn't call them that anymore, she thought with a ghost of a smile on her face – it was still easier to do when she'd slept in the bed.
The bedroom was cold because one of the window panes was broken.  She didn't fix that, Homion did.  When he was here.  Three of the others were papered over to hold back the wind; he'd said that he couldn't get the glass.  She knew that the money had gone on flowers and trinkets for the woman he'd skipped out on her with.  The largest part of it had gone on a green brooch, as long as her thumb, made of some soft stone.  She thought it might have been jade.  It went with her eyes, not those of the woman he'd skipped out on her with.
The crib, still standing by the bed, was still empty, and her breath still caught in her throat when she saw it.  She added it to her list.  Oil the hinges on the gate, throw away the coffee table, burn the crib.  Burn the crib and all its horrible memories.
She lay down on the bed, not bothering to pull the stained sheet over her.  Another chore; take the sheets with her to the Laundro-tastic, Tuesday would be best when Laurel would be at her bridge club braying with her friends and saying stupid things like "Oh, three clubs, Ethel!  What were you thinking?"  Slip them into a service wash, get them nice and clean.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen them clean.
Oh wait, yes.  Before she'd caught Homion and that whore here, in her bed.
She rolled over, she needed to get to sleep.  The insurance company still hadn't paid out on the car, said they were investigating.  What was there to investigate?  Homion and the whore had skipped out on her and were drunk when they drove through the level-crossing and got stuck on the tracks in front of the train.  The police said so, they'd called her at the Laundro-tastic to tell her that her husband was dead.  She'd even remembered to cry.

Cracker

That punch knocked Sweet off of his chair and knocks the chair after him and on top of him, but he just pulls himself up off the floor, rights the chair like a man who's just slipped and sits himself back down again. Then he smiles that sweet smile at Cracker, spits his candy out past him, and says,
"Guess you've not had the time yet then."
He leans round Cracker, who's staring at him like a dog that's up and spoken complaining about the food, and waves at the woman in the car; a nice, polite wave, that's almost a salute the way Sweet does it. Cracker's still staring, but he manages in a voice that sounds like someone's strangling him,
"Don't you go waving at my woman."
"As your wanting," says Sweet. "She don't seem much friendly to me anyway."
"That's 'cause you're dirt," says Cracker, his mouth setting into a thin line. "And dirt belongs on the floor."
Sweet might have been expecting another punch, but if he was then he was surprised, because Cracker kicks his chair, breaking a leg and pushing it back, and Sweet lands on the floor again. This time he sits there, pushing the chair aside and tilting his head back to look up at Cracker.
"Seems like that chair must have right upset you," says Sweet, "though it doesn't seem quite right for a man to pick on them that can't fight back like that."
"You keep your thinking to yourself," says Cracker, and his fingers are flexing again, not knowing whether they're hands or fists once more. "What happened to Sheriff Donny's kid then?"
Behind his back, across the road, the good ol' boys are exchanging glances now, and there's little whispers passing back and forth between them. Cracker can't see them, but his woman can, and she calls out from the car in a Yankee screech that can etch glass.
"Cracker!" she yells, sounding like a train entering a tunnel, "Cracker, them boys over by the store know what you're talking about!"
Cracker turns and looks them over, and you can see that he's not scared even though there's six of them and only one of him. Then he pulls this gun from his pocket and points it back behind him so that it's aiming at Sweet, and he says,
"If'n one of you gentlemen doesn't help me out here, then I'm pulling this trigger to make a start, and when I'm finished you'll all be sorry."
That sets up a muttering and a mumbling among the boys, but Cracker has to pull the hammer back on the gun before one of them pipes up and offers as how he might have seen Sheriff Donny's boy back by the fields, working on the harvest. Cracker lowers his head and raises it again slowly, in what might just be a nod if you think he was capable of courtesy, and then he pulls the trigger and the loudest damn bang the town's ever heard goes off, and the bullet speeds away from his gun.

Sweet

They called him 'Sweet' on account of his sweet tooth, seems like there was never a time when he didn't have a candy or six hanging around in his pockets, but Jim Mahan was also the sweetest tempered man you'd ever meet. When Clyde, who'd eat raw onions for his lunch every day and then breath over you when he met you, got right up in his face, Sweet never even wrinkled his nose; just smiled his simple smile and carried right on with business. And when Jessica, who ran the general store back then and had no idea that the good ol' boys out front called her 'Vinegar-knickers' when they thought there was no-one but the kids around, told him that he couldn't have credit no more on account of her having heard tell that he'd kicked a dog, well he just smiled that simple smile and quit his smoking just like that. Even when she relented, after she found out that the dog was rabid and the size of a sheep, Sweet never went back to the store while she was there. And he never smoked a cigarette or cigarillo again, neither. The man had principles.
It was pretty much a good day when Cracker came back to town, driving up the highway in a dusty open-topped car with him at the wheel and a woman that looked cheaper than dirt sitting in the passenger seat, her blouse open and a red bra showing, one leg thrown over the car door all casual like, as though waiting for the next man through the door. The sky was blue, the wind wasn't blowing much, and the grit from the last dust storm was mostly swept away, so as Cracker roars in, the engine throbbing softly, hinting at power, all of the mothers appear from somewhere, and God knows but I never saw them coming, and the children are swept off the street and found tasks to do that'll keep them away from the windows and seeing Cracker and his woman.
Well, Cracker pulls up outside the bar, and Sweet's sat outside on a chair, balancing it on three legs and sucking on some candy or other. On the other side of the road, outside the general store, ol' Vinegar-knickers is closing the door and putting up the shutters and generally doing all that of locking up that means she's just locking up until Cracker's gone away again. The good ol' boys are still sitting there, watching what's going on, and more than one of them had their eye on that woman, though in all fairness she was pretty distracting.
Cracker gets out of the car, walks over to Sweet, and then spits on the floor at his feet.
"Where's the Sheriff?" he says, and Sweet can see that his fingers and clenching and unclenching all the time like he can't make his mind up if he wants a hand or a fist.
"Dead," says Sweet. "Died eight months ago now. Crabs, I think it was."
"What?" Cracker looks taken aback, and his hand settles on fist. "Sheriff Donny? Dead?"
And of course, that's what Cracker's come back for, 'cause of Sheriff Donny being the one who dragged him out of the barn he was hiding in and sent him off to the State for trial there, and they're the ones who locked him up for the last three, and told him to his face that he was a twisted, stub-souled son of a bitch.
"Ayup," said Sweet, mimicking Cracker's accent what he didn't leave town with. He leans around Cracker, peers at the car, and then returns his eyes square to Cracker's face. "Did you go and get yourself married then?" All sweet and innocent, and there's nothing in those words that could get a man all excited like it got Cracker, 'cause Cracker steps forwards and swings, and punches Sweet right in the side of the face.