6
I woke up the next day feeling almost normal. I decided to walk down to the jazz cafe before heading into the office.
The barista slid me my coffee and that phone again.
“I don’t need the phone. My answer hasn’t changed.”
“I just do what I’m told.”
The phone buzzed. I answered it.
“Are you loved?”
“No.”
“Do you have anything to lose?”
“No.”
“Do you want her back?”
I thought of the dog I’d left behind and of the color magenta and of the characters trapped in Germinal.
“No.”
“Then I have no use for you.”
“Alright. So do I get to meet the pianist?”
A click. The voice was gone.
“So do I still get free coffee?” I asked the barista.
“Unless I’m told to start charging.”
“Ok.”
I took my glass and stood by one of the glass tables and thumbed through options for restaurants online.
My firm’s office was on the twenty third floor of a gray monolithian building just tall enough to be comfortably called a skyscraper. The building was close enough to the city’s center to make me uncomfortable. I was wearing a blue button up dress shirt and black slacks and a cheap belt.
My boss was a woman named Tessa and she was younger than me by a couple years. She’d started the firm a few years back. Turns out there will always be a market for advertising in a city. She had dark hair and brown eyes and was recently married.
“You’re back!” she said warmly.
“I am.”
“Feeling better? You look like you’ve lost some weight.”
“A little bit.”
“I’m glad you’re better. New assignment for you, it’s on your desk.”
“Alright.”
I found a folder with my instructions and the address of the client. I ran the address online and looked up pictures.
It was the sandwich place.
I found myself still for a moment. I thought of the portly man. Would he hire an advertising agency? Did he really think he could get people to go to that side of the city just for a sandwich? I’d assumed he was the owner from the way he’d moved around the place. But I didn’t know for sure…
I walked into Tessa’s office.
“If it’s not confidential, could you give me the information for the owner of the shop in my assignment?”
Tessa looked up from her monitor. “Why?”
“Might help with research. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but this place is a dump. If I talk to the owner I’ll have an easier time coming up with a story.”
She frowned. “Normally that would be fine, but this is a bit of an odd case.”
“What do you mean?”
She shook her head slightly and tapped away at her keyboard. The printer in the back of the room whirred to life and printed a single page. She wheeled over to grab it and brought it to her desk. There, she used a black marker to cross something off then handed it to me.
“This is my only contact with the owner. Take a look.”
I examined the paper. It was an email chain. Or more specifically it was a printout of two emails. The first was the inquiry from the client. Their email address is what Tessa had blacked out.
It read, ‘Hello. I’d like to hire you to run a piece on my shop. The length isn’t of much importance to me. Only that the piece is published somewhere. I don’t care if it gets me more customers. What I care about is that this is published and that I’m not disturbed. Also that I maintain anonymity. I’ll pay whatever the price is via the method of your choice.’
The next email was Tessa accepting the offer and listing an online payment address.
“I see.”
“Yeah, strange, right?”
“Well, I guess I’ll do what I can then. It doesn’t seem like it matters if the piece is any good.”
“Give it your best shot. Remember, every piece we write is also an advertisement for the agency.”
“Got it.”
I went back to my desk and wrote the piece. I spent most of it describing the roast beef and pastrami sandwiches. My language was vivid and visceral enough for me to notice that this was the best piece I’d written in months. It would indubitably be stuck in a random, throw away city magazine and be promptly forgotten. But it would probably be published on a website somewhere. So it would outlive me.
I finished up and went to the sandwich shop for my lunch break. It was quite a walk but I didn’t have any more work for the day at the firm so I didn’t think Tessa would mind.
When I got to the sandwich place the factory workers were already there. It looked like they’d just recently been served and they were eating aggressively.
One of them gave me a nod as I walked up to the register.
“Same thing again today please.”
The man nodded.
“Hey, quick question,” I said. “Do you own this place?”
The man shook his head. “Nope.”
“How long have you been working here?”
“A long, long time.”
“Ok.”
I took a seat at the same table as before. I could have sat farther from the workers but this time I made the decision that I’d like to eavesdrop. If I was confronted on it I’d tell them the truth.
“I did more research last night,” the tall, bald man said.
“Fat chance.”
“Fuck you. I did!”
“What did you find?”
“Well, what we gotta do is simple. First, one of us goes into Mr. Jacob’s office and takes a look at his contracts. Now, whichever of us is gonna do it has to have an understanding of-”
A fat, balding man with a front tooth missing raised his hand. “I can do it.”
“Can you?”
“I worked in accounting before I got laid off. I’ll know what to look for.”
“Well ok then! That’s a start.”
“Alright genius, what comes after that?”
“After that, we figure out when the worst possible time to strike would be. When could we stop working when Mr. Jacob needs us the most? That’s when we’ll do it. One day we’ll be at our machines, then we’ll stop and go outside with our signs and protest.”
“I guess…” one man started, nodding, “I guess that makes sense.”
“See? I’m telling you! The only thing we’ve gotta worry about is spies.”
This time, I really was looking at my sandwich. But I knew the last word was directed at me.
“I’m not a spy.”
“So are you an ally?” a different one asked me.
“I’m a man eating a sandwich at a sandwich place.”
“What do you know about strikes?”
How to answer such a question? I went to an art school which meant I’d read my share of revolutionary philosophy. But the most revolutionary thing I’d done was sign a petition or two.
“I’m reading a book about a workers’ strike.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yup.”
“And how does it go?”
“I’m not quite sure yet. I think they’re all going to die.”
“And why is that?”
“Because they don’t have money and the owner of the mine does.”
“I see. Well… shit.”
The men started to grumble and talk amongst themselves. I took my sandwich to go.
When I got back to the apartment building it was the late afternoon and Richard was at his desk. I saw the head of a bottle poking out from beneath the desktop. When he spoke to me I could smell it.
“Package came for you.”
“Alright.”
“It’s big.”
“Is it now?”
“Yes sir. I told them to leave it by your door. Otherwise we would have had to carry it ourselves.”
“Smart thinking Richie.”
“Yes sir.”
I went upstairs and saw it. It was a large crate, almost as tall as me and much wider. It was addressed to me. I checked and didn’t see a return address or a name anywhere. There was a dolly underneath it and I felt grateful. I opened my door and wheeled it inside. The lid was held on with latches and hinges instead of screws and I swung it open. There was plenty of foam and an upright bass wrapped in cellophane. There was no note. I closed the lid, wheeled the crate into the corner of my living room, and set it down.
I sat on my couch and thought about it. It had to be from her. But the bass wasn’t the only thing I’d left at the house. I’d left over half my clothes, and a laptop, and a record player, and a bass guitar. But she’d sent the upright bass.
My fingertips itched. I knew what they wanted. I wanted to accompany him. That pianist. I wanted to pluck a bassline in the key he’d used. I wanted to create musical inertia and stop right when he played that chord. I wouldn’t even touch my bass when he played that chord. I’d only degrade it.
I looked at my phone. 3pm. I had more time to kill. I grabbed my book and returned to the strike at the mines.
At 6 my phone buzzed. It was Linda. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve gotta cancel tonight. Something came up. You should go out though! Could be good for you :).’ I felt like I was sinking. I was laying on my couch and I reached back behind my head toward the corner of the room and I felt the crate. I thought of unwrapping it. Playing for long enough for the neighbors to complain and then I’d ask them if they thought I was any good. I thought of accompanying the dog playing the saxophone lick and I stopped sinking.
‘Alright.’ I replied. ‘Another time then.’
I didn’t eat dinner. I was still afraid of my fridge. It had poisoned me, after all.
Odds and Ends 