This may look like a normal office, way up on the tenth floor, but it’s really much more than that. The world is an amphitheater and this office is my personal boxed seats where I come to view the spectacle. Each day I wait for the play to begin, and I know that it is coming. The fates are the actors in this play; they shall provide the entertainment, but in the mean time the suspense builds, leading to a more exalted climax.
But oh, how am I to endure until the elusive day? How long shall I wait to see the moment when balance is restored and the scales of justice are once again in equilibrium? When will the antagonist be recompensed for his crimes and once and for all silenced from his blasphemy? Why do the fates play these games? Why do they withhold judgment from a man when everything in nature cries out that his verdict is guilty!
If a fool who didn’t know better were to assess the situation, they would think that I had done something wrong, that I was the one that fate wished to torment. But what have I done? Nothing! I am a normal man. I work for an average company in a very humble office on the tenth floor. Each day I am shut up here like a prisoner and must turn to my window and watch the world as if on a screen. I can see it but I cannot touch. I work into the late hours and never expect thanks or praise. If anything, I am the hero of this story.
Why then am I tortured? Why then am I mocked? Why then am I powerless to administer justice? Oft times I think the fates would have me go mad, but I shall not fall prey to them. Perhaps they merely test me. Perhaps I am looked upon with favor if I but withstand this trial.
I cannot recall the day it started; deep back into the recesses of my brain, it escapes me. Perhaps he has always been there. Perhaps he has always haunted me. Even back through the ages, through many lifetimes, I feel as though he has always been there.
Each day at eleven thirty, he comes, never a moment before or after. Each day he is dressed much the same. He is the sum of all blandness, with his gray coat and tan slacks. He carries a plain black metal lunch pail, the kind that has been unfashionable for the longest time.
Each day he sits down on the right side of the green wooden bench, directly below my office window. He then relaxes there for a moment, taking in his surroundings.
Why must you do that? This is a crowded city with dirty streets and meaningless people carrying on the dull tasks of their meaningless lives. What possible reason could you have for noticing them, even for a moment? Of course! It is because you too are utterly meaningless! You have nothing in your head, so it matters little what you look at or what you could possibly be thinking about it.
I am so used to him. I know his routine so well. He always takes the same actions at the exact same times each day. These days I know it so well that I do not even have to watch. I can sit here at my desk and close my eyes and picture it all. And then I open them and walk to the window and he is in his routine, right where I knew he would be.
There is something so wrong with a person who can operate like a machine, as if acting out a program that has been input by some overseeing programmer with neither creativity nor finesse. It is unnatural. It is disturbing.
Now he takes off his hat and sets it beside him on the bench, revealing his round, tanned head with the few hairs that are folded over and what appears to be through these binoculars like two or more dark sun spots. But from the tenth floor, one thing that I cannot miss is the shine of his oily skin, even without binoculars. Wipe your head! I wish to cry out to him. For God’s sake, take that napkin, neatly folded in your lunch pail and dab that greasy melon of yours!
But as loud as my mind can shout, he ignores me and carries on as he always does. He would not be interested anyway. From where I look down upon his drab existence, I can see that there is no raising him from his state, no possible redemption. I can see all his deeds from a godlike point of view, but it does not take a god to be appalled at such unforgiveable flaws; all it takes is some refinement.
These many months, he has thought that no one regarded his doings, but I see them all. I watch him as he opens his lunch pail. His sandwich is neatly wrapped in wax paper and taped like a holiday present. I imagine that every morning he goes through similar routines, preparing his lunch, or that perhaps he has a dull wife at home, who is forced by fate to prepare this atrocity for him. He peels the tape and unfolds it. The bun is large and round, and dotted with what appear to be poppy seeds. How can someone so ignorant be so meticulous? Each time, he removes the top half of the bun and proceeds to smear mustard on it. It makes me want to vomit.
I can see that the lettuce is the green, leafy kind. I suppose that iceberg is not good enough for Mr. Highandmighty! You are so particular about your lettuce, but why not about your clothes? Why do you then ruin your sandwich with all that mustard? You are so smug, you think that you can get away with anything, don’t you? You think that you can break all the rules of good taste and the fates are powerless to stop you. But you will see that one day they will discover your sacrilege. One day the fates will turn your smugness against you.
From here, I cannot see whether his lunch meat is chicken or turkey. One day I leaned way out the window, trying to make it out. That was when things changed, but I didn’t know it then. I placed my left hand on the bookshelf on the left side of the window, and my right hand on the air conditioner on the right side for support as I pulled myself back into the room. As the rusty old thing creaked and moaned under my weight, it whispered the answer to me, but I was unable to interpret it for some time.
I still was unsure whether it was chicken or turkey, neither of which is forgivable with poppy seed and mustard. I cringe, recalling the trauma that I experienced when I was four years old, when, careful as I was, I found myself choking on a fishbone. How I thought my young life was over! It gave me an appreciation for life. But here this fat man recklessly takes oversized bites of his fat sandwich in defiance of the fates, with no reverence for his life. Fates, why do you shower us with this irony? If any man deserves to choke, is it not he, who could not appreciate a good meal if he had one, but devours this refuse with enthusiasm, as a dog would his own vomit?
Please, help to me understand! For all the injury to anyone with a sense of class, this man continues on without a care in the world. How can you stand yourself? You are the smuggest bastard I have ever known, or I should say I thank God that I have never known. For, if I knew this man, I would be compelled to kill him. It is the least anyone can do. His mere existence is an offense to the existence of others.
But these are not the extent of his crimes. He finishes what he would consider to be a sandwich, and, for crying out loud, licks the remaining crumbs from the tips of his fingers and then wipes his hands on his pants. What on earth is wrong with you, man? What causes you to be so crude? You savage! You Hun! I’ve heard the Mongols committed atrocities, but I’m sure none so blatantly foul as this!
But there is no apparent end to this freak show. He takes a small white plate from his lunch pail and sets it on his knee. No one else in the world takes a small white plate to work with him in his lunch box. This, only my tormenter would do. He does it to provoke me, whether he knows it consciously or not. It is all to provoke me, and to make me suffer.
He peels his banana, which has started to brown on the outside. It is always the same. It is always browning on the outside. It is as if he buys them and refuses to eat them until they are browning on the outside and, I’m sure, taste like alcohol on the inside. Of course! Why would he want to shock someone by eating anything remotely normal or tasteful? As if that was not enough, he slices the soft and slimy thing lengthwise into two equal halves and lays them side by side on the plate with the flat parts facing up. He then takes out a small jar from his lunch box. It looks as though it used to contain baby food, but now it contains peanut butter.
With the same blunt butter knife he scoops out some peanut butter and proceeds to coat his banana. God, have you not the least sensation of the taste buds that would halt this inexcusable recklessness? This man does not deserve to breathe a minute longer of our air. His arrogant head is a waste of every morsel that he has ever stuffed into it. If a bird shat on his food right now, he wouldn’t be able to taste the difference. So uncouth! So perverse!
It was at this point in this play, so many months ago, that I knew that the heavens would smite him if the earth didn’t open up first to swallow him. But the earth has better discrimination, I’m afraid.
I hope that no one misunderstands my angst against this despicable creature. It is not that I am uncaring or cold. I am a tender soul. When I see people dressed up and collecting money in front of the grocery store, I donate my pocket change, which nothing but my kindness compels me to do, and when I see the poor and hungry on television, I close my eyes and wish that the earth was rid of them. But more than that, I am the silent hero, who works all week and pays my taxes, which go toward the support of many who do nothing to help themselves. I don’t even recall Jesus doing that.
It is not that I am uncaring at all. Some may have pity in their hearts for this man who every day eats his lunch beneath my window. After all, it is not a matter of his many offenses being the result of his personal choices. It is a matter of consequences that result from making personal choices.
Certainly he has the rights to defy both the heavens and decency with his grotesque mannerism if he likes, and God knows why he stays his hand in administering to him his just desserts, but moreover this man chooses to do it right beneath my window. Each day he chooses this spot to perform his lewd actions under my nose, to rub my face in it. Each day he gets his satisfaction at the cost of my peace of mind. That is what will bring justice quicker; that is what prompts my hand in advancing it.
So I decided that something had to be done in retribution. I could not let these insults go unanswered. It became a matter of principal and of defending my own dignity. Each day for months I watched him do the same things day in and day out. Each day the same repetitive movements, done masterfully with the intent to disrupt my harmony, were acted out where I was sure to observe them, incapable of ignoring them. Each day I suffered, longing to know what I could do.
At length, I could stand no longer my inaction, and out of desperation, I let one drop of spittle descend from my lips. Just as he took a bite of his sandwich, it splattered upon the top of his bald head.
Insult of insults! I know you felt that you phony! He merely takes another bite of his sandwich, and chews like he hasn’t a care in the world. How could he not feel a drop of water on that bare head? Is this man human at all, I wonder. Is he just a shade from the netherworld here to cause me grief? Can I do anything at all to interrupt the course of his routine, or is he already a ghost, condemned to repeat the same actions every day that once led up to his demise? But he seems human enough. Only a human could haunt me so.
I have to do it again. I pool my saliva onto the top of my tongue and lean again from the window and release it. I watch it descend, slowly, slowly, and splat! This time he reaches up and wipes the top of his head looks at his hand. Then he wipes it on his pants and looks skyward, as if for rain. I reach back into the office and placing my hands on the bookshelf and the air conditioner, pull myself back inside. Another groan escapes from the rusty old wall unit.
I look down again, and the man is still looking for rain clouds. You know that was not rain, I cry to myself. Stop pretending that you don’t know it was me! You know what I am doing. You know I am returning one insult for the thousand I have suffered.
I peek from the corner of the window. He is looking at the air conditioner. Of all the… Stop pretending! There is no water dripping from this box. In all the time you have sat directly beneath this condenser has it one time dripped on you? No, not once!
But I can see what you are doing. You are trying to outsmart me. You don’t want to stoop to my level. You don’t want me to know that it bothers you. You want to go on insulting me and pretend that my retaliations mean nothing. We shall see, my friend. We shall see. I can drop more than saliva. I can bring down the wrath of almighty.
It was then that I understood what the creaking old air conditioner unit had been saying to me. Several times I had heard its whispered plan, and did not comprehend, but now I understood; now it was all laid out before me.
Glancing around the plain, innocuous office, I checked my surroundings. There was no one there but me, no one to hear my thoughts. Nothing about me or this room in which I seemed to belong would give rise to the slightest motive for planning this man’s demise, yet here we were, the air conditioner and I, conspiring to be agents of fate, to assist him in his scheduled work. Who would suspect? I hardly suspected myself.
It had escaped me for the longest time, yet the way was there before me. The air conditioner had observed. There it was, its face looking upon me as it protruded about four inches from the wall, whereupon rested my small potted plant. But the other end of it stuck out from the wall on the outside of the building about a foot and a half, where it hung precariously, ten floors above our mutual persecutor. I knew that the sun, the clouds, the buildings, all of nature must have looked down upon this man with the same contempt that I held for him, but only the air conditioner knew the way to put a stop to him; only he had the mettle to recompense. Now he whined to me of my oversight and blew upon me his favor for joining him in the plot.
Such cunning, even I did not possess. Such wrath, who could guess? Certainly I suffered at the man’s hands as he ate his sandwich, but never did it enter into my heart to throw myself down upon him from the window and eliminate myself with him. That would hardly have served my need to feel justified, as I would not be able to savor the victory for long, but the air conditioner was so enthralled with determination, that this was exactly what he had conceived to do.
I smiled. You’re clever, my friend; I have to hand it to you. But you will need my help and this will require planning.
I finally felt the flood of relief that I had awaited for so long. I at last had hope. I would be redressed for my wrongs, my sufferings, and no longer would I be waiting helplessly for fate to take action, but fate had enlisted me as an active participant. I think for weeks my smile did not diminish, and when each day I looked upon him, it was with renewed excitement and anticipation. It was all a matter of time.
Each day passed the same as the last. Each day this man went through his mindless, robotic routine as if guided by some unseen, unstoppable force. But now I had a routine. Each day my hands went through motions of their own. We were now both on unalterable courses that were destined to collide.
This office building was old and worn down from years of use. It desperately needed renovation as I had complained of far too often. It was as unattractive and useless as that man down there. The paint was peeling in places and the baseboards were coming away from the sheetrock. The old air conditioner was set into the wall and fastened with thin metal brackets that were nearly rusted through. The wood, itself, into which it was affixed was soft and rotted. It was only a matter of time.
But time toys with people, dangles their dreams and aspirations before them, tempting, but so often not delivering. So I answered the call to speed up the process. I began putting salt water in my pitcher, but instead of watering the plant, I watered the rusty brackets, encouraging them to oxidize faster, and dampening the wood, advancing its deterioration. Weeks turned into months.
Patience, I tell myself. There is no reason to rush this. Enjoy the process. It will culminate in my satisfaction in the end.
Hello, down there. I see you my friend. How is the sandwich today? Oh, I am so pleased to hear it. Are you sure you have enough mustard? Too bad you don’t have any relish to go with that. Yes, I know. I am sorry. If I had some, I would surely send it down. But what I have I will send down to you, and that, I will relish. I will relish every moment of it, and every moment thereafter.
Each day he sits and eats his lunch, and each day I watch and water the brackets and rest my elbow on the air conditioner unit, listening with growing enthusiasm to the strain of it under my weight… until the day came.
I looked down upon him, the anticipation mounting and making me nearly light headed. The day is finally here. The day is finally here. The fates have smiled upon me and our friend is not the wiser. He does not know that this is the day. His big day. No one has told him. No one has leaked our plot.
I watch as he finishes his sandwich. Now he is licking the crumbs from his fingers. Should the climax come before he eats his banana, or after? During, of course! The final act of judgment should come during his greatest blasphemy. He will be smitten of fate in the very moment of his darkest deeds, there for all the world to see his degradation. Then all will know the dark secrets I have had to bear alone and no one will have sympathy, knowing his loathsomeness.
Here it comes. The peanut butter is spread. The die is cast. I step back from the window, looking at the air conditioner. This is our triumph. I take down the plant and immediately the box wobbles in the opening from the shifting of weight. I unplug the cord, blow the air conditioner a kiss and rest my hand one last time on the front of the unit, and with the gentlest of pressure it falls back and disappears, leaving a gaping hole in the wall.
There is a slight pause, in the which, for one instant, I am uncertain if the air conditioner unit hasn’t taken flight and soared away. But then I hear the crash, just as I reach the window and peer down.
I am stunned. I cannot move. I look down upon the man, completely crushed and flattened by the heavy object, which lay on top of him still. I see blood running along a crack in the sidewalk. He appears to have fallen through the green painted boards of the old wooden bench, which must not have been able to withstand the impact. Neither could he, as it must have done something awful to that large shiny head of his.
At first I am not sure how I feel about it. It takes a moment for it settle in, to realize that I had actually accomplished what I had set out to do. Then my smile creeps back across my face once again as I am filled to the brim with ecstasy. For the longest time, I had carried a nagging doubt that it would all come to pass, but now the gods have spoken and justice is served with the flair of a five star meal. It has come swiftly and without mercy. So be it.
I have to tuck away my smile now as people are running up to the scene and some of them are looking up at me. Some obnoxious woman is screaming.
What are you screaming for? It has already fallen. It is not going to jump up and land on you too? Don’t worry about him. Why do you even care? Don’t you see how he is dressed? Don’t you see what he was eating for lunch, for God’s sake?
Oh, of course. They are all putting on a show now. They must all act saddened by these events. It is understandable. I suppose that I must do the same, as I can hear Mrs. Walker running in from her office.
"What is all the commotion?" she asks.
Mrs. Walker, you’re looking particularly bad today, I think to myself, but instead I reply, "It is a terrible tragedy, Mrs. Walker. The air conditioner has fallen from my office and I believe it has done some damage."
She rushes to the window and, looking down, she cries out, "Oh my goodness!"
"Yes," I sympathize. "I am always saying that management needs to take better care of this place."
"Is he dead?" she calls down to the people below. Someone answers by yelling up that he is dead.
Of Course, he’s dead, you twits! You try surviving an air conditioner landing on your head from ten stories up. Why am I surrounded by these people? I suddenly feel like I have just stepped on an ant, and am forced to listen to all the other ants complain about it. Should I really let this bother me, I ask myself? Of course not.
But Mrs. Walker is hysterical. Calm down, woman, please, I think as I roll my eyes. "Now, there’s no reason to get upset," I tell her.
"No reason to get upset?" she cries, and her sarcasm is apparent.
But I simply won’t talk to someone who is going to give me an attitude. I just need to remove myself from the situation. After all, it would be too improbable to believe she would just throw herself from the window as the result of depression over the death of someone she didn’t even know. Best if I avoid the temptation to offer assistance. I excuse myself to the restroom.
The police are here now and so are photographers and reporters. I wish to go down and look, to feast my eyes on the sight of him, how he has gotten what he deserved, but I shun the lime light. My part in this is small, and humble. I only assisted the fates in their work. They should get the glory.
But now I must endure the constant stream of intruders into my office. They all want to see the opening from where the unit fell. Don’t they realize that I have work to do? Don’t they have work to do? This man was pathetic, and not worth all the fuss! It is not as if someone important had died. No tragedy here. This is not the death of someone who contributed to society, not someone who made the world a better place to live. This is a man who made us all ashamed, who flaunted before us all his wonton repulsiveness.
If you wish to feel sorry, feel sorry for me. I had to look at him every day. I had to suffer his tasteless apparition and sickening fetishes. Is there anything that one could possibly say at his funeral, but "Amen?" Is there anything to be done but bury him as soon as it is feasible and try to forget the tragedy that he was born, that he lived and that he didn’t have the grace to die sooner?
The mourners over my malefactor who are congregating in my office are really getting under my skin now. I make my way to the window and look down again. The police have drawn tape around him and photographers are taking pictures.
You sorry excuse… You are such a crybaby. Such an attention getter! Can’t you even die quietly and with some dignity? I bet you think you have the last laugh now. I bet you are enjoying this, you sicko!
The hours pass and I must now answer questions. I must show the weakened woodwork and rusty brackets. Worst of all, I must express sorrow that this tragedy has occurred. I know that bastard is laughing now. I know he is getting a huge kick out of putting me through this. But I endure it all. I suffered through ages of your torment; I can suffer through this.
The office is quiet now. The police are gone and they have carried that large sack of peanut butter eating foulness away to the morgue. The air conditioner is next to the building where they placed it after all the pictures had been taken. Hello there. We made a good team.
The bench remains with a hole in it and the blood stain still offers its testimony that a worthless waste of human being had darkened this spot and continues to do so. But the man is gone. It is time for me to go home. I take my things and turn out the light, looking back with satisfaction at the hole in the wall, now with plastic stapled over it. It is like the empty stage, and they have drawn the curtain over the greatest play of my life.
It is a bright new day and I awake refreshed, and return to the office a new man. Never more will I have to endure the torture of lunch hour. Never more will I have to spend my lunch time watching someone else eat. My office is like a new place. It is no longer the barren cell it used to be, but returning feels like revisiting a prison I had once escaped from. But I am a conqueror now. I have overcome.
Gazing down I still see the blood. How disgusting you are! Why didn’t you keep your guts inside you, like everybody else? That’s been your problem all along. You show everybody what no one wants to see. And now you leave your blood there to mock me, to mark your spot and continue to claim it as yours. Well it is not yours! You are dead.
So I make the phone call and the man comes with a pressure hose and washes it down. That should eliminate him. "Take that tape down too," I call to him. "The police are done with it."
I try to breathe and enjoy the fresh air, but I can’t. There is still a hole in the bench. It reminds me that he used to sit there. I call down to the maintenance man. "Take that bench to the dump."
Now it is gone, but something is still not right. I am looking down. There is no bench, no blood, no tape. But there is the air conditioner unit. My accomplice.
When I get back to the office I am holding the unit in my hands. It is banged up, but it is a nice souvenir. I place it on the floor by the wall and put the plant back on top. There.
Pacing in the office does not help. Going to the window only causes me to look down. I have done everything. The fates should let me have peace now, but I am not feeling it. I can’t get my work done. I keep thinking of him, fallen through the bench with the air conditioner on top of him, and wonder if that was a good enough end for such an offender. Should I have planned something worse? Did I let the fates down somehow?
I stroll back to the window and glance down. Oh, no they did not! No, no, no. I don’t think so! Some heckler left a wreath there in his memory! The crassness! I run for the door. We will see about that. There is still time to toss it into the dumpster before they empty it. Gosh, the nerve of some people! Don’t they know that there is an ordinance against littering?
Picking up the wreath, I feel awkward. I don’t recall ever standing in this spot before today. The streetlight pole looks tall from down here. I look up and see the window and the hole in the wall. That is quite a ways up. I can imagine being squashed by something falling from there. Good thing I don’t provoke people to drop things on me.
I dump the wreath and return to the window. Suddenly, I feel anxious. Then I realize the time. It is almost eleven thirty, almost time for my tormenter to make his appearance. I look down and wait. I know he shouldn’t appear, but he always has before, and somehow I feel that he’s going to. How surprised I would be if he did? What if he didn’t? I hadn’t thought of that.
It is time. There’s no one there. He is late. He should be sitting now and unwrapping his sandwich. It is past eleven forty now. He should be done with his sandwich, and cutting his banana. Where is he? Oh yes, I put a stop to that. Good thing.
I am feeling nervous. I should be watering the brackets now. I should be smiling over him and telling him that his day is coming. It’s funny, but if he doesn’t do his routine, then neither can I. It’s funny and yet I am feeling upset. Why is he doing this to me? That self-righteous jerk! There is no limit to his insolence. He knew this would happen. How insidious! What could I have done to him to deserve such treatment? After all, he started this. Of all places, he chose to come and sit under my window and torture me with his lunch and by licking his greasy fingers.
He chose me to persecute and now my mind is seared with the image of him, whether there or not. I pull on my hair and shake my head, but the thought of him remains, mocking me. I can picture him laughing at me and want to kill him all over again.
By heaven, what is with this infernal heat? Why is it so hot in here? It is nearly noon and I am dying in here. Then I remember that the air conditioner is out. I call down from the window. "Where are you? This is all your fault!"
Wherever he is, I hope his laughter makes him choke.
August 19, 2007
