Chapter 1: Cont'd

     I'd given so little thought to each of those previous 400 odd paychecks. The first one got me excited, I imagine, although I had no direct recollection of picking it up or feeling anything one way or another about it. The last one certainly caught my attention. My head was swimming. The rest of me was locked in place, not moving an inch. I was dumbfounded.

    “Good luck, Frank.” Ted stood deliberately as he reached out to shake my hand. I shook his extended appendage, as much out of reflex as anything else, then turned to the open door and slunk out, mixing among the throngs that were lined up to receive pay envelopes of their own from Mildred. She was as quiet as ever as she worked her way through that pile of envelopes and the associated line of workers that stretched out through her doorway and into the hall beyond.

    Making my way toward the main exit as best I could, the walls seemed to heave and swell as if they were working hard to exhale me from the building. The floor beneath my feet felt as if it had softened to the consistency of marshmallows. Time lost all relevance, except for the fact that I wanted to get out of that hallway, out of the company parking lot, as fast as I possibly could. Unfortunately, I seemed to be moving at roughly the pace of a hobbled octogenarian using a slightly irregular walker.

    Finally, after pushing myself down the hallway toward the cold, cruel world that was no doubt waiting patiently to add to my humiliation, I reached the steel exit door. Pressing against the panic bar with my hip, I oozed out onto the damp sidewalk, confused, embarrassed and just beginning to realize exactly how deep a hole I’d stumbled into.

    A light drizzle teased my nose and beaded up on my eyebrows and hair as I trudged to my car. Around me were straggling bands of my former co-workers. They were laughing, joking and enjoying the freedom represented by a Friday afternoon, for the most part. I was not. As a matter of fact, for perhaps the first time, I came to realize exactly how isolated I was from the 100 or so men and women I’d shared a working environment with up until only a few minutes before. Not one of them made my list as someone I would count as a real friend. Then again, I didn’t really count anyone else in the world as having a solid spot on that list. I talked to no one as I made my way through the parking lot and no one talked to me. Much like my relationship with Ted’s secretary, Mildred, we were even. All of us. Certainly, I wouldn’t be missed on Monday morning. Not by anyone.

    The world and I were at odds. Yet even with that critical tidbit of information gnawing away at the back of my brain, it still hadn’t occurred to me that I was rapidly making the transition from being a deeply troubled man to being a man in deep, deep trouble.

    There is a profound difference between the two conditions. I didn’t know that then. I also didn’t know that my situation was about to get a whole lot worse.



 

Copyright © Jamie Beckett - 2005. / Last revised: October 26, 2006.