Selected Prose

Nathan (excerpt): BRIEF TUESDAY AT A BAR
Richy (excerpt) – BRIEF TUESDAY AT A BAR

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T.K. Lee

This man, Bill Lexx, as I was about to find out, was standing in front of the third story men’s bathroom window when I went to use it this morning. Outside the window, not inside the bathroom, but on the outside, in a suit, which I might add was not a three-piece, and he had taken his tie off; his socks didn’t match the color of his suit. I only noticed that because I sit down when I pee. I know a lot of men don’t do that, or would never admit it, but I do. My grandmother taught me it was impolite to be heard using the bathroom, regardless of whether you’re a man or a woman.

So, I’m sitting on the toilet, and this man, Bill, I guess he heard me because I had to put the toilet seat down, you know, so I could sit on it, and it clanged against the porcelain base of the toilet. And he turns around and stares at me. Thank God I hadn’t taken my pants off yet. I was sitting on the toilet to retie my shoes.

I forgot to mention that.

See, Margie, the secretary in my office, made me untie my shoes when she was getting off the elevator. I mean, accidentally. She goes down to the basement to smoke instead of outside, says she can’t completely appreciate a cigarette outside. I had walked a little past the elevator, not meaning to not speak, and then felt guilty and didn’t want to be rude so I turned around to speak, and in the process of turning around, I stepped on my left shoestring.

She couldn’t have cared less.

The elevator doors shut. She was going down to the basement, so, I took the stairs up to the next floor to go to the bathroom. The bathrooms are weird in our office building. It’s apparently a landmark of sorts and so nothing is ever done to alter its appearance, not even for convenience; it exists to depreciate history. The men’s bathrooms are on every other floor. And right as I got to the third floor, I saw Mr. Yola and got nervous. That’s how my other shoe got untied because I stepped on my right shoestring when I saw him, but I couldn’t stop right then to tie either of them back because I thought Yola had seen me, and even though I was just going to the bathroom, he’d find some way to make me feel guilty for leaving my desk. He’s now the number one man at the Shipping office, and has been since Mr. Lehman was found dead floating around Lake Tia O’Khata, last July. Yola’s a true Mississippi gentleman; he doesn’t have any children. He was mumbling to himself and had a rather glossed look to his face; I just went on to the bathroom, and sat down on the toilet to tie my shoes.

And I don’t know what I was thinking. But after I tied my shoes, and this man, Bill, you know, is still staring at me—I told him his socks didn’t match his suit.

“What.” Bill mouthed.

He couldn’t hear me; the window was closed. I got up and opened the window…however, it’s that old kind of window that opens out instead of raises up, so I had to ask him, I had to raise my voice, to scoot over to the left a little bit so I could push the window out.

“What!?”

I tried not to raise my voice, and mouthed back at him, instead. You know like you do when you’re in a car and you’re talking to someone else also in a car.

“Scoot over to the left. I cannot open the window. It opens out, not up.”

I motioned with my arms to indicate what I was asking him to do. After a second or two, he caught on.

I pushed the window out, and then, we had another problem. The window got stuck. See, the windows are tall and when I pushed them open, they split, you know, one went out to the right and the other to the left. And the left one, by Bill, got stuck. I did try to close it back when I realized he couldn’t get around it, but it wouldn’t budge. If the left window had gone all the way back to the wall of the building, he could have gotten around the window and crawled back into the bathroom. But, as it were, he couldn’t move, and the men’s bathroom on the third floor is the last room on that floor, in the east wing of the building. Basically, he was trapped. There wasn’t any other window for him to go to.

I forgot all about peeing.

I leaned out the window, and looked through the glass at him.

“Hey! I was just trying to tell you your socks…didn’t match…your… suit.”

I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.

Then, you know what he did; he started to cry. And I don’t mean simple crying, I mean deep crying—drool was stringing down from the sides of his lips, cutting off into drops—the length of three floors.

I can’t believe I told him his socks didn’t match.

I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.

* * *

Twenty-eight minutes earlier, Bill Lexx had lost his job. A random shipment in the department had come up missing, and Bill Lexx’s job was to make sure that never happened.

And other parts of the department move too quickly.

Twenty-seven minutes ago, Mr. Yola fired Bill, without remorse, without regret. Bill Lexx (and he was very exact with this, methodical) said it took him thirteen minutes to climb out of the breakroom window and around the building. He took a step a minute, precisely. Bill Lexx was very thorough about this process. He was very anxious to explain himself; this side of the building faced the executive parking lot.

Bill Lexx’s wife is pregnant with twins. She doesn’t have a job. Bill had a wonderful health plan through the company. Two months away from five years in the same position. Raises usually start around five. It was the perfect job for a man of exactitude, as he seemed to be.

Bill says he has no idea what happened to the shipment.

Then, again, the tears.

“I signed the papers, I signed them, the papers…I know that it it it it it came to the office. Alicia knows…. She can…she she…she’ll tell you that!!” Margie may smoke, but she’s efficient. But, then, I didn’t know Alicia. I wasn’t even sure what Bill’s actual job title was. Shipping Clerk. Sales Rep.

* * *

I looked down below us. You know, three stories is not that high. I mean it’s not so high that people can’t notice you. But nobody even looked at us; none of the people walking by paid any attention. He quit crying.

And, then, Bill Lexx asked me to forgive him.

“For wha…me?…why, why…me?”

“Tell me you forgive me!” He was becoming irrational.

So, I told him.

“I forgive you.”

What harm could it do? If it helped him to relax and think rationally I’d do it. I mean, I did it. Maybe in a bizarre way I was a symbol of the company. At the same time, and it hit me all of a sudden, it…it seemed an enormous responsibility for me to forgive this man.

You know, when I first came to work here, the Crisis Management Team, from Community Counseling—their offices are across the street in the Bancorp South building—was hired by the company to conduct a seminar on “Suicidal Tendencies in the Workforce.” And, I didn’t go. I didn’t have suicidal tendencies. Although I began to realize that there are other issues pertaining to suicide, like tendencies in co-workers. That might have proved beneficial to me. I certainly thought I was dealing with one, now.

“Bill, I know you haven’t mentioned jumping off, and I am hoping it’s because you are changing your mind if that was your original intention.”

“To live costs money. I cannot live. I never did.” Which I thought was a bit contrived for him to say, but suicidal individuals seem to lack a great deal of prudence.

I couldn’t help but feel frustrated. He started sobbing again.

“Your wife is pregnant, Bill! You can’t forget about that! She needs you; those babies will need you! So you lost your job. You’ll get another one!” I didn’t believe it myself.

He got so mad he hit the window.

Glass splintered everywhere, down to the ground and all over the ledge.

Then, I peed my pants.

Thank God none of the glass hit me. But, now, his hand was bleeding. I ran to the sink, to the towel dispenser and ripped out one of those big rolls of brown paper towels that all places of business seem to have. God, I bet that company makes some money. Stress causes you to think the oddest things at the oddest times.

Bill Lexx grabbed that whole roll and threw it to the ground. He didn’t seem to care that he had glass stuck in his hand, a few thick shards embedded in his knuckles.

“Bill. Come inside. Please. Don’t jump. I mean, now that you popped out the glass, you can crawl through, at least…I can get an ambulance…the hospital’s only a block or…”

“Shut the hell up. Shut up. SHUT up. Shut UP. SHUT UP!”

And I’m thinking it’s amazing that not one single man has walked into this bathroom yet. We must have some powerful bladders in this building. I was actually started to get pissed off, you know? Why did I have to deal with this? I didn’t even know Bill Lexx; we don’t even work in the same department.

Still, there I was petitioning for an arbitrary man’s life, rallying for his unborn twins and pitiful wife, for his seemingly indiscriminate life and marriage.

Bill stopped crying and stood up. He had alternated half-stand to crouch for most of his confessional. He was bleeding all over his suit, it was navy mohair, and the empty window frame. He put his hand on the brick wall of the building, preparing to fully stand. His hand had such a large spread. His shoulders relaxed, and he leaned against the wall, standing straight up. He must have been over six feet tall. I guess that’s how I saw his socks to begin with, being so tall his pants didn’t quite fit his legs. He grabbed onto the window frame, and I stepped back so he could get a good footing on the windowsill in front of me.

My left hand had been holding, white-knuckled, to the glassless frame stuck on the ledge. I guess I was so nervous, I’d forgotten to let my own blood circulate, and I hadn’t let go since

he’d broken the glass—as I backed away, you know, to give Bill Lexx room, I backed away holding to the window frame. That with the pressure of Bill’s weight must have been exactly the force needed because we dislodged the window. And while I was standing there, wet from urine, unable to let go, Bill Lexx sucked in, his hand slipped, and over the side he went without exhaling.

I want to say he fell at the same speed as the brown paper towel roll, except he fell in slow motion, and of course they weren’t dropped at the same time. Maybe they didn’t have to, I can’t fully remember the nature of that science experiment. I watched him all the way down to the pavement; he landed a few feet from an illegally parked dark blue Crown Victoria LTD. Not too many shades different in color from his suit. A passer-by might have assumed he came with the car, or had tripped out of it, consumed by an aneurysm that had caused a terrible nosebleed. For the fall to be such a significant one, the result was relatively neat and contained.

I guess I killed him. Not that I like admitting that to myself. Certainly hadn’t been my intention.

And, I suppose it doesn’t even matter what color his socks were now.

But, so you know, they were green. A sage, I think.

I’m pretty sure.

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