The Glass

THE GLASS
Tim Schlee


The clouds darken, what little sunlight remains is replaced with shadow, thunder roars, and the rain begins to pour.

I knew I should have brought an umbrella.

I dodge puddles as I head for Tacqueria Leon, a local authentic Mexican restaurant. Misty took the car to take Derek to a friend’s birthday party, so I’m stuck walking ten blocks to get a meal that will be soggy and cold before anyone can even have a chance to eat it. Faced with a view of tantalizing umbrellas, carried by dry and unsympathetic hands, I stare at my feet, only to realize that my shoes, besides being completely ruined, cost ninety dollars. And buying another pair would not go unnoticed by Misty, which would lead to an argument over money and my alleged inability to spend it wisely, and, subsequently, a cold, uncomfortable night on the couch. And my back will be in enough pain after lugging fifteen pounds of sopping wet Mexican food ten blocks and the diarrhea that is sure to follow its consumption.

Interrupting my thoughts and my general progress towards Tacqueria Leon is sewer work, forcing me into the gutter. The water rapes what’s left of my shoes and cars murder my shirt, a nice cotton button down T, with their splashes.

Finally, and too late, I reach the restaurant. Before I get a chance to enter a guy in a gray jump suit stops me and tells me, “You can’t go in there. The whole lobby’s getting retiled.”

“Then how am I supposed to get my food?” I shout over the roaring rain. “The drive-through?”

The bastard, on his break I’m guessing, shrugs.

“Sir,” I hear through the static and rain, “you aren’t in a car.”

“Your lobby is closed,” I shout.

“Well, come back in a car.”

“Screw you,” I say.

“What?”

“I just walked ten blocks in the pouring rain, and you’re telling me I can’t get my damn food?”

“That about sums it up.”

Before I can really tell him off or ask for a manager a car pulls up behind me. After a couple of ear-shattering honks, I move. When the car leaves I run up under the canopy and knock on the drive-through window. The pimpled and sideburned teenager just ignores me, but I stay for a few minutes anyway in a failed attempt to dry off. Soon, another car comes, so I decide to head home and make some macaroni and cheese, instead.

Before the undercooked and over-cheesy macaroni can settle in my stomach I’m thrown into a long overdue fight with Misty, my wife, my love, and the worst mistake of my life.

“What happened to you?” she asked walking into the living room.

“It rained.”

“But why are you all wet?”

“Because it rained.”

“What the hell do you mean, ‘because it rained?’ It didn’t rain inside.”

“I wasn’t inside.”

“Would you just tell me what the hell happened?” And to Derek, she snaps “Go eat dinner.”

He walks off toward the kitchen and I call, “There isn’t any.” But Derek, knowing what’s coming next, stays in the kitchen.

“Why isn’t there any dinner?”

“Because you took the car.”

“You couldn’t have made something?”

“You told me to get Tacqueria Leon.”

“So, why didn’t you?” I can see the look of frustration on her face and it makes me simultaneously happy and sad.

“Because you took the car.”

“You couldn’t walk there?”

“I did. Why else would I be all wet?”

“Then why isn’t there any dinner?” she shouts.

“Because,” this is where I start to get loud, “they were redoing the goddamn floor and you can’t go through a goddamn drive-through without a car! That’s why!”

“Well, why the hell didn’t you go someplace else?”

“It was raining cats and dogs! What the hell was I supposed to do?”

“You know what? Forget it.” She’s fed up, and I’m glad that the argument is almost over. “I’ll just take Derek there myself if you’re going to pull this.”

“Fine,” I say, and turn on the TV. I can see out of the corner of my eye that she’s crying. And without another word she grabs Derek out of the kitchen and rushes off in the car. I doubt she’s getting Tacqueria Leon. She usually rushes off to cry on her sister’s shoulder.

She could be having an affair. It wouldn’t surprise me. In fact, it would almost surprise me if she weren’t.

I’m in my boxers watching wrestling with a beer in one hand and the remote in the other when Misty gets back a few hours later, by which time I’d taken a shower, put on dry clothes, and done pretty much everything else to get ready for bed.

“I’m sorry,” I say, more out of obligation than any real sense of reparation.

Ignoring me – probably because I didn’t even bother to even glance at her while apologizing – she answers, “There’s something wrong with the car.”

“Wrong how?”

“It keeps ticking.” Derek, whose bedtime is nine, sleepily drags himself up the stairs to his bedroom.

“Ticking?”

“Yeah. I think something’s loose in the engine and it keeps banging up against stuff.”

“I’ll worry about it in the morning,” I say, staring at the television.

“I’m sorry, too,” she says as she sits down next to me on the couch and plants a kiss on my stubbled chin. She plants a hand on my thigh and I can almost smell her primeval craving to make love.

Tired, I leave the room with a quick, “goodbye,” and go to bed. I fall asleep with the image of her disappointed – almost horrified – face as I denied her for the first time in our marriage tearing at my heart. My sleep was not peaceful.

The next morning I have a pair of eggs that I salted too much and peppered not enough. I flip through the news stations but it’s all about murders and rapes. I open the newspaper and see it’s going to rain again today, the local pro football team lost, and the bridge on the way to work has been shut down due to “technical difficulties”. I toss the paper aside and finish my breakfast in silence. Misty and Derek are still asleep.

After getting ready for work, I open the garage door with caution so as to not wake up Misty or Derek. As I pull out of the garage and into the street, I notice the ticking Misty was talking about. It’s almost a clunking sound. Definitely something loose inside.

The drive to work is, as usual, uneventful. The radio once again informs me of the sealed off bridge, and, without a map, I scramble to find the quickest route to work. I inevitably get lost. I pull to the side of the road and try to find my bearings. I can’t think because the radio is too loud; once it’s turned off I can’t think because the clanging in the engine is too loud. I turn the radio on again and I still can’t think. Giving up, I turn the car completely off. I finally figure out where I’m at, and, mumbling swear words under my breath, I go the rest of the way to work without the aid of the radio.

Work. Where do I begin with work? First off, I didn’t even want to be a computer engineer. Ever since I was little I wanted to be a writer. I would write my own versions of fairy tales while I was in elementary school and, as I grew older, began writing my own original stories. I even started a novel. But then I went to college. A friend of mine told me writing courses, even collegiate ones, were all bullshit, so I opted not to take any, a decision I still regret today. Instead I became involved with computers and software development. I may make one hundred thousand dollars a year but I absolutely hate my job, at which I am currently arriving.

Walking through the halls I feel like bait on a fishing pole; one bite and I’ll be hard pressed to get out. I’m almost to my office when Vincent, a software programmer from down the hall, says, “Hey, Sonny.”

I almost cry. “Hey, Vince,” I manage at least a pseudo-cheery disposition. “How was your weekend?”

“Oh, it was great. I went down to the lake with my wife Karen. You’ve met Karen. Well, you wouldn’t believe what…” His words fade into a gentle murmur and I simply nod my head where it seems appropriate. All I can hear is my own brain screaming “Shut up!” repeatedly. Finally he leaves and I continue the trek to my cubicle. Wendell Maas grabs me by the community printer and tells me the story of how he lost his right pinky – one I’ve heard too many times to count (he was out late drinking one Sunday night under the mistaken impression it was Saturday; after only three hours of rest he was so tired the next day at work he fell asleep at the printer, unwittingly letting his hand be caught in the paper feed) – much to my chagrin. Joining uncomfortably in his bellows of laughter, I hurry off to my cube, ignoring any other would-be prospectors. I arrive to find Sherry Flaybird, one of my four bosses, shoving a memo in my face.

“I don’t know if you got the memo,” she says through her Botox smile, “But we’re putting new cover sheets on the TPS reports.”

“I got the memo,” I try to tell her, but she never listens. “I must have made a mistake.”

“I’ll make sure you get another copy.” She tries to be happy and stern at the same time, but it just comes off creepy. “And make sure you put the new cover sheets on your TPS reports.”

“I already got the – ” but she’s gone.

I settle into my chair and stare at my blank computer screen. I hear people shuffling papers, clearing throats, snapping staplers, printing memos. I even hear a couple people playing games. Over time all the noises seem to take on a pattern, and it’s almost like I’m in some giant, corporate recording studio where they’re recording all the ambience of every day existence. This is the soundtrack to my life.

Before I nod off, I decide to turn on my computer and maybe even do a little work. My job sounds easy. I am a computer technician, though I rarely ever touch a computer besides my own. I usually deal with glitches in programs, bugs, viruses. Every day I come to work with an inbox full of requests. I sit at my desk and sort through these requests, decide which ones are most important, which ones are the most difficult, which ones I’ve had before, and I go about fixing these problems in whatever way possible. The ones I can’t fix I have to send to somebody who can. Sometimes I just have to load upgrades for programs onto everybody’s computers. Sometimes I have to load entirely new programs.

Basically my job is to keep this company at its maximum efficiency. The only problem is there is no such thing as “maximum” efficiency. I just sit at my desk, upgrading dated programs, repairing broken ones, and never really getting anywhere. Everyone always wants everything to be perfect, but perfect just isn’t possible.

Over lunch I go to the Uplift Café with Wendell and a friend of his, where we discuss the effect downsizing would have on the workplace at the present time.

“I’m just saying,” says Wendell, “there are a lot of folks around here who don’t do much of anything at all. They’re just taking up space and wasting money. The increase of funds that would result from a small to moderate downsizing would benefit the company invaluably.”

“You,” retorts the friend whose name I don’t know, “just want a bigger paycheck. And how would you know whether some people’s jobs are really necessary. You should be hard at work doing your own job and not sticking your nose in other people’s business.”

“I’m not sticking my nose in anybody’s business. It’s just that, as it is, the company has too many fields that overlap. Everyone’s doing the same thing, and if anyone in a position of authority was smart enough to realize that, this company could be booming. Instead, we’re stuck in a downward spiral and in a few years we’ll all be sitting on our jobless asses wondering where our jobs are.”

Nobody asks me my opinion. They think I have one of the useless jobs. I’d like to see them try to get along without me. I may not be the engine or even a wheel of this particular vehicle, but I’m certainly a bolt holding it all together.

When Wendell and his buddy stop all their boring and, in the long run, inconsequential bickering about company expenses and efficiency, the conversation moves on to a subject more fitting: food.

“I’ve never had the shrimp ravioli,” Wendell’s buddy thinks aloud. “It sounds pretty good.”

“Don’t get it,” I warn him. “It’s greasy and has no flavor. I wonder,” I add a little more quietly, “why this place hasn’t gone out of business. The food they serve here is crap.”

“Are you guys ready to order?” The waiter, a tall, skinny college kid with mock-excitement pasted on his face, approached from my backside, almost as if to catch me off guard when I might let slip my true feelings of his beloved workplace.

“No,” I snap, perhaps too harshly, “we’re still looking.”

It doesn’t phase him. He’s back a few minutes later, and this time I order without demur. The conversation moves to cinema; we discuss which movies we think are best, which ones we hate, and which ones we just don’t understand.

“Pulp Fiction,” I say, eager to throw in my two cents, “has got to be, without a doubt, the worst movie I have ever seen. I mean, there’s absolutely no plot, no character development of any kind. It’s just an excuse for Samuel L. Jackson to yell swear words at the top of his lungs. And the whole intervention of God thing couldn’t have been anything but a joke.”

“I kind of liked the movie,” says Wendell.

“Oh, God. Not you, too. I swear, every other day, I get home, my wife’s watching that crap. Full volume. Nothing but gunshots and curse words all throughout the house. Can’t imagine how anyone could enjoy that movie. I mean, it’s worse than Fight Club.” And the debate ensues. Wendell, I must say, I like, out of every single other soul, not just on my floor, but in the entire building, best. That said, I wouldn’t think twice of giving the guy his walking papers. If I were his boss, that is. We just don’t agree on anything. I like strawberry, he likes chocolate. I say hello, he says goodbye. They say opposites attract. The fact that he is the closest thing to a friend that I have at work may corroborate that, but I wouldn’t be caught dead with him before nine or after five.

The food comes and it’s filling but not very satisfying. I leave the waiter a five-percent tip. His smile never wavers.

Back at the office an enthusiastic Sherry Flaybird announces I’ve been promoted. Instead of actually fixing anything, I’ll just make sure everybody else fixes everything. “It’s not official until next Tuesday, but I was just so excited. I just had to tell you.” She’s off in a puff of energy, and I slip listlessly into my chair.

Some of the thoughts bouncing around in my head include, but are not limited, to:

Oh, great. Now I won’t just get yelled at when I slip up, but whenever anyone under me slips up, as well.

I wonder how much it will pay. Probably not enough.

Is it hot in here?

I’ll have to move my desk and all my belongings. God. I hope I don’t pull a muscle.

Misty will want to celebrate. Go out to eat, or something. All she does is waste money.

It’s definitely hot in here.

I’ll have to find a babysitter for Derek. We might as well throw our whole savings in the garbage disposal.

The thoughts continue, but one seems to stick in the front of my head the most, and that is: I feel sick.

I’m sweaty and nauseous, I have a headache, and I could shit rain. It all came at once. I don’t know if it’s the food I ate, or the stress of being promoted, or both. All I know is I’ve got to get out of here.

I dry heave my way to the front desk, time out, and make it half way to my car in the parking lot before turning around and going back to use the bathroom. When I finish up in there, I head once again for my car. The heat inside is almost unbearable, and the air conditioner takes too long to cool it down. I spend the whole drive home sweating, gagging, and cursing the clunking sound in the engine.

Upon arriving home, I promptly take two Tylenol and lie down on the couch for a nap. I’m just beginning to fall asleep, at the point where the constant babble of the radio comes alive and dances itself through my mind, when Misty runs into the room, jumping up and down and screaming bloody murder.

“What is it?” I ask, trying hard to keep my eyes shut.

“I’m pregnant!”

“What?” I’m positive I misheard her.

“I’m pregnant!” She jumps in place, grinning from ear to ear. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

Some point in there, probably right around the second “I’m pregnant,” I vomit all over myself.

“Oh, my gosh. Honey, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I stand up, try to walk towards Misty, but I see doubles and then triples, and then I fall back down on the couch. “Did you say you were pregnant?”

“Yes! I just took a test. It’s been two weeks since I should have had my period.” The quadrupled tears gleaming in her eyes form a sparkling mosaic for me to talk to. “We’re gonna have another baby!” she shouted.

“Are you kidding?” I’m too sick to shout, but I still manage an argumentative tone. “We can’t afford another child. We can’t even afford another car.”

“What?” Her face – now there’s only one – goes blank.

“Money doesn’t just grow on trees, Misty. I don’t know what you do all day, but I work. I spend my days in a boring office making money that just gets wasted by you.”

“You’re kidding right?” Her voice and face both seem hurt, and the tears in her eyes are no longer from joy. “This isn’t some stupid dress I want, or some stupid car. This is a baby! A living, breathing human being! How can you sit here” – here came the hiccups – “and say we’re not having a kid, because you don’t want to spend the money?”

“I don’t want to argue,” I lie. “I’m just saying, if we’re gonna have a baby, we’re gonna need to be more careful with our money. A second car is definitely out, now.”

“Everything is about money to you. You probably wouldn’t mind if Derek dropped dead right here and now, just so you wouldn’t have to pay an extra fifty dollars every week to put food in his goddamn stomach.”

“Hey!” I stand up again, and this time stay standing. Everything doubles and triples and doubles again, and the smell of vomit on my shirt only makes me want to vomit again. “It’s a lot more than fifty dollars a week.”

“What is wrong with you?” she shrieks. She breaks down in sobs on the floor. I kneel down, try to hug one of her, but I miss and end up face first on the floor, smearing my puke all over the carpet. “Get away,” she moans.

“I’m sorry.” I sit up and loot at the brown muck sinking into the off-white fibers. “I didn’t mean it. You know that.” Her sobs and my retching permeate the otherwise silent room. She won’t look at me. I can’t bear to look at her. The vomit on the floor is starting to dry.

“Let me get that cleaned up.” I go to the bathroom, but can’t find anything that would be of use cleaning carpet. I take a shower, my vomit-soaked clothes of today thrown over my rain-soaked clothes of yesterday. I put on clean clothes and spray on enough cologne to bring back my headache. When I return to the living room, Misty is gone. “I’m going to the store,” I yell, my voice resonating through the house, “to rent a steam cleaner. I’ll be back in a little bit.”

I take another Tylenol before driving to the nearest Rent-a-Center. I almost wreck a couple times because my headache keeps an incessant glossing of tears in my eyes. The nausea has receded and, besides my head, I feel fine.

But then I start to thinking. Thinking, I’d like to tell someone, is the worst thing to do in any situation. I start thinking about my life. My wife, my son, my job, and, most of all, my child not-yet-to-be. When I learned of Misty’s first pregnancy, I remember thinking, My God! I’m going to be a father! But, the second time around, it seems to have lost its edge. It’s not nearly so exciting. Instead of family picnics, teaching him to read, playing catch in the back yard, I can only imagine all the dirty diapers, all the sleepless nights, all the times I will daydream of life before kids. A much simpler life, indeed. But somehow, I tell myself, a life not quite complete.

Before I can decided if that’s bullshit or not, I reach Rent-a-Center. On the way in a bum on the sidewalk asks for change. I ignore him as best I can. Inside, I do my best to navigate the seas of cluttered aisles, dodging other buyers and kindly telling employees I have all the help I need. They’re out of hand held steam cleaners so I’m stuck trying to carry a forty-pound monster (of course wheel-less) to the front desk for check-out.

As I struggle to car, a voice from behind me calls, “Sonny?” I set the steam cleaner down and turn around to face the owner of the voice. It’s the bum. He’s dressed in a mud-splattered sweater, paint spotted pants, and worn leather boots. His face, behind the scruffy, tangled beard, is a familiar one. “Shane? Shane Harris?”

“Sonny!” he cries, and promptly bear hugs me. “How ya been, man?”

“Geez, it’s been a while.” He looks me up and down with a swift flick of the eyes.

“You look great,” he says.

“Yeah.” I don’t bother to return the compliment because it’s obviously not true. “It’s been, what? Since high school?”

“Yeah, it has.” A brief, reminiscent pause, and then, “How’s life? You married? Got any kids?”

“Yeah, actually I do. Derek is four, and we have another one on the way.”

“Wow. That’s great. Really great.”

“How about you?”

He laughs. “Don’t kid yourself. Look at me! I’m homeless, I won’t lie. I asked for change on your way in.”

“How…why…when did you…” I stumble over my words.

“Well, you remember my mother, right? You remember she had cancer? Well, she died a couple weeks after graduation. I fell into a big depression. Nothing anybody said or did could make me see the good in anything. I tried to kill myself a couple times. I got real big on drugs. My dealer was a friend of mine, trusted me, you know? I would always pay him half of what the stuff was worth. ‘You know I’m good for it,’ I’d say. And he believed me. Problem is, my debt got too high. There was no way I could pay it. He started threatening me, and threatening to hurt my family. After my mom, I couldn’t bear to lose anybody else, so I ran away, for their safety and my own. I’ve been living on the streets, making money anyway I can. Sex, drugs, stealing. I’ve never killed anybody or anything, but I did go to prison once. I was gang raped by a group of two hundred pound Mexicans.” He seems to recall all of this with a nostalgic fondness. How any of this could give him pleasure I don’t know. “But I wasn’t in very long. I’ve pretty much been bumming change for the last few years.”

“My God,” is the only thing I can say. Glancing at my watch, I say, “Well hey, I got to go. I’ll see you around, I guess.”

“If you ever need me, I’ll be under the bridge at fourteenth street.”

“Well…bye.” I lug the steam cleaner to my car, throw it in the back seat. The smell of hot, sun-baked cologne brings my headache back in a flash. Driving back home I think of how similar Shane and I were in high school. We were two peas in a pod, to use a cliché. But look how we turned out. Complete opposites. One, a computer engineer with a six-figure salary and a wife and kid at home and one on the way; the other, a druggie, motherless bum whose entire existence has consisted of roaming from one block to the next, always looking for shelter.

“My God,” I say again, to myself. “How much easier he must have it. No worries, no family to feed. No stress. He doesn’t have to think of ways to keep his sex life fun, or fumble his way through a Christmas list, or meticulously plan every single second of a vacation so as to be sure nothing could go wrong, and then have something go wrong.” I pull into the garage, drag the steam cleaner to the living room, and begin cleaning. When I’m done, I find Misty standing in the doorway.

“You wouldn’t believe who I saw on the way home,” I say. “Shane Harris.”

“Your old high school pal? How is he?”

“Perfect.”