Personal Days

by Ed Park

  Inside the office it didn’t make too much difference, except that Lizzie’s desk and both of Crease’s were near drafts. The cold air poured in mysteriously from above. They kept calling Ray in maintenance, only to discover that the Sprout had fired Ray back in the summer. Lizzie’s lips were a corpsey blue. She was wearing two sweaters and sometimes put her winter coat over her shoulders. The Sprout told her that he’d handle it.

  They had a vision of him in the basement, rolling up his sleeves and manhandling the boiler, his trusty wrenches and tongs arrayed on a makeshift workbench. But all he did was tell Lizzie to go to Kmart and buy herself a portable heater and expense it.

  Now everyone who didn’t have a heater wanted one. Even people who were warm wanted a heater.

  II (L) ii: Winter really kicked in a few days later, snow up to here, thuggish winds. Laars said, This is like two winters ago.

  Winter, two winters, two years. Where does the time go? Where does the life go?

  Laars said to Crease, I have the worst hat head and I wasn’t even wearing a hat today.

  II (L) iii (a): On Thursday some of them were at the Good Starbucks talking about Jules. No one had seen him in a while but Pru heard through the Original Jack, whom she seemed to be encountering with remarkable frequency, that he’d closed the toaster-oven place and had just opened a club done up ’70s ski-lodge style. The name escaped her. Gondola? Snow-mobile? Bunnyhill?

  Laars wondered if Jules had ever finished his screenplay, Personal Daze.

  Jonah might know, he said. Jonah wasn’t with them—holed up studying as usual, getting smarter, growing hairier.

  Crease was excited about Personal Daze, the movie, and hoped there were lots of office scenes. He fantasized that it was about him—the unrequited love of the Greek girl could make a good subplot. He thought Jules might have a better chance with producers if he changed the title to Jobmilla.

  I can imagine what the poster would look like, he said.

  II (L) iii (b): Lizzie explained to Grime that Jules had written most of the screenplay using an earlier version of Glottis.

  Glottis is bloody brilliant, said Grime. It’s like magic.

  True, his spelling had improved. They were still scared of his e-mails, as Glottis tended to go all caps without warning, so that IT LOOKED LIKE HE WAS SHOUTING AT YOU. But the trade-off was worth it.

  Grime’s headset had an attachment that transmitted his voice up to fifty yards—it was overkill, but he liked the freedom to pace. It helped keep the ideas fresh. Pru said she’d seen him jawing away contentedly, musing over by the windows, and asked what project he was working on.

  Oh, just writing me memoirs, he joked.

  II (L) iv: The next morning they slung off satchels and handbags, settled at their desks, sorted through new e-mail, stared at their coffees. The Unnameable was making his shuffling rounds, dropping an interoffice-mail envelope into everyone’s in-box. The missive came courtesy of Henry from HR, and even before they started reading, they knew something bad was happening.

  At around the same time, at each desk on the fourth floor, a piece of black plastic, about the size and shape of a credit card, slipped out of an envelope and clattered to rest.

  It had no name or number, no markings at all. Its power was entirely invisible.

  Henry’s note said that, beginning tomorrow, everyone would be required to swipe in and out whenever they started or stopped working. Each floor was equipped with a box that would take a digital time stamp.

  You can’t even see the magnetic strip, said Crease, studying his card under the light.

  Strip or stripe? said Lizzie.

  A black box was affixed to the right of the elevator, a thin metal box as blank and unyielding as their new cards. A somewhat crudely cut slit extended vertically down the center of the box, the space their cards would pass through two or more times a day—five inches that seemed to stretch to the length of the entire wall. Jonah approached the box cautiously and after a moment rapped it with his knuckles. They listened for any sound of life: gears turning, a hidden clock ticking away.

  Silence.

  Then the congregation headed for the Sprout’s office, a united front.

  But the Sprout just shrugged. You can all thank your friend Graham for that, he said and pointedly turned his attention back to his screen.

  Graham? Grime?

  The Sprout typed a line with exaggerated clatter, intent on ignoring them. Then he picked up the phone and left a message for Lizzie—who was standing in his office with everyone else—to look up various numbers and e-mail addresses. Whenever you get a chance, he said.

  The Sprout swiveled his body to face the window and kept talking to Lizzie until his visitors eventually went away.

  After looking up the information, Lizzie came into the office, where she saw the Sprout peering at his own swipe card. I don’t see where the magnetic stripe is, do you?

  II (L) v: Grime, conveniently, wasn’t in the office. He’d phoned the Sprout that morning, off to England for a spell.

  Everyone wound up staying later than normal that day, in thrall to the new swipe box, the heartless new regime. Minutes, seconds, were being counted by the Californians. Pru bore down on Lizzie, wagging her card. Is this the thing that you didn’t want to tell us before, the plan that Grime told you about?

  What?

  The thing so awful you couldn’t say what it was?

  This is totally separate, she said. I swear I had no idea. But Pru didn’t believe her. No one did.

  I bet Grime’s not even on vacation, said Crease. I bet he’s with the Californians somewhere.

  Pru demanded that Lizzie spill the beans.

  II (L) vi: If you want me to tell you, I’ll tell you, said Lizzie. But you’re going to wish I hadn’t.

  Tell us, said Laars.

  It doesn’t even make sense. I don’t even know why he told me.

  Just tell us already.

  I can’t even tell my therapist. It would mean I’d have to be in therapy another five years. It’s just so awful and I don’t want to think about it.

  Don’t be such a Bert, said Pru.

  Lizzie insisted she needed three drinks before she could even start to tell it.

  II (L) vii: The jukebox was loud. They humored Lizzie, playing a drinking game that they constructed on the fly—you had to knock one back any time you used a word with a g in it. It was a difficult thing to stay sober, hard to pick words as you grew tipsier.

  Laars, attempting to drink with his mouth guard in, avoided talking altogether. Pru, too. Crease and Lizzie were three sheets to the wind. Before long Crease had taken his shiny new swipe card out and was making it do a little dance on the table to an old Van Halen song.

  I feel dirty just thinking about it, said Lizzie. You’re going to hate me.

  We already hate you.

  That’s what I thought.

  Everyone kept quiet until she began.

  II (L) viii: So this is what Grime said that night. Grime—his name! Grime! It makes total sense now in a cosmic linguistic, linguistico-cosmical way. It’s karma or—right. So we were talking about vacations, my buddy Grime and I, I suppose this was right after I explained the whole crucial concept of personal days to him, the Lizzie definition of personal days, how they weren’t vacation days—you were supposed to spend them at home, doing personal things like reading a book or watching an old movie, or I suppose theoretically at least having nonstop sex with someone off Craigslist, and anyway I mentioned that I wanted to take a big vacation someday, possibly next year, to India—which I realize is kind of what I say whenever I don’t know what to say. Not that it’s not true. I suppose this was all a clumsy way of seeing what his idea of a vacation was, more to the point, whether he was single or had a girlfriend or whatever. I asked him if he’d ever been to India. He said yes, actually, he lived there for a year, working in strategy for Goneril. I had no idea what Goneril was, or really what strategy was, so I just nodded. I Goo
gled it later, it’s this pharmaceutical company that I think is bankrupt now. Grime was telling me about all the places he’s been. He was sort of flirty. It both was and wasn’t sleazy. What he was saying wasn’t particularly risqué but something about him got me hot and bothered. The truth is I didn’t really mind.

  TMI, Pru said.

  OK, well, Pru? If you think that’s TMI, I should just stop right here. I mean, let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about climate change or waterfront development or maybe the stick up your butt. Because this whole story? This whole story is premised on TMI. It’s the most TMI exchange in the history of TMI.

  Sorry.

  Anyway I asked Grime if he liked it and he said he didn’t get to do much sightseeing, the work was relentless, but one time he took a trip out to a temple somewhere in, I don’t know the name, I don’t even think the temple was famous at all. Oh wait, it was famous for something, for its beveled something. It was a few hours from the city and he was on a bus and the bus was falling apart. He’d had some bad food the night before—tried to cook something and it turned out strange. Basically he’s not feeling so great all of a sudden, trapped on this rickety bus. There’s still almost an hour to go. He’s sweating. He said that in India you’re always sweating but this was sweating of a higher order. Higher odor? Something like that. It’s hard to figure out everything he’s saying.

  II (L) ix: He manages to fall asleep. When he gets off the bus, he isn’t quite at the temple yet. He exited too early or too late. No village in sight. Cars go by, a few trucks. Across the road is a sign. He figures out using the bad map in his guidebook that he’s a mile away. A mile! He’s in agony and all of a sudden he feels like he’s going to die—he knows he’s going to die. He starts weeping. Who will find his body? He can imagine the vultures picking his bones. He thinks, How sad, how sad, to just disappear like that. The Goneril people don’t care, they’ll try to find him for a few days but after that they’ll give up. Nobody even knows he’s made this trip. So he’s slumped and sweating by the side of the road and he just spontaneously sends up this prayer, sort of half-moaning, half-praying. He’s not even sure if he’s praying to the Christian God or whatever or some Indian god that happens to be hovering in the area. It doesn’t matter. He just says, If you let me survive this, I’ll always be grateful. Show me a sign and I’ll worship you in my own way, is the gist. He’s saying this out loud now, tears in his eyes, the words coming from who knows where: I’ll worship you in my own way.

  And just like that he has a moment of clarity. His stomach is in total revolt and he knows that he has to find the loo as he calls it ASAP.

  But there’s nothing around him. He bolts in what he guesses is the direction of the temple but it’s just not going to happen. He’s seeing double, his legs respond stiffly. And then he can’t help it and he just—he—you know. He loses it and he just goes.

  II (L) x: At this point everybody screamed.

  II (L) xi: That’s not actually the bad part, said Lizzie. He’s a mess but he’s feeling a hundred times better. He’s taken a few steps back from death’s door. He keeps walking to the temple, where hopefully he can clean himself up. He’s uncomfortable and soiled but at least he’s not dead. In his mind the Judeo-Christian God or some random local deity has spared his life. He prayed and his prayer was answered. So now every year he has to keep his promise, to do it again, no matter where he is, as a sign of his devotion and thanks.

  Do what? asked Pru.

  Nobody said anything.

  In his—pants? asked Pru.

  Lizzie nodded, and everybody screamed again.

  I so did not have to hear this, said Crease.

  Grime says he’s done this in all sorts of places since then. The time comes and he just knows. He’s done it in Berlin and Tokyo, Wichita Falls and Syracuse. One of the conditions is that he can’t plan to be somewhere alone. He could be at home or he could be out in public. It has to be a natural thing. And he’s had good luck ever since, he says, his career has taken off. He thinks the ritual keeps things real, hooks him up to the cycle of consumption and waste, matter and decay, Ernie and Bert, yin and yang. And I don’t know, part of me was freaking out but part of me somehow wasn’t. Until, OK, let me finish this drink. Until he said, You’re a down-to-earth girl, I can tell—I knew that from the beginning. He said, You probably understand where I’m coming from. And I said, London? Because I was getting this weird feeling, I’m probably crazy, but I’m just remembering now that I was getting this really weird vibe.

  II (L) xii: That he wanted me to do it with him. And I don’t mean sleep with him.

  Everybody screamed.

  II (L) xiii: Pru went to the bar and bought another round for the table. Grime! Crazy! Yes! Of course! They didn’t know whether this made him the biggest Ernie or the biggest Bert. The Ernie-Bert paradigm was shattered. Drinks! Drinks! Lizzie looked both relieved and totally mortified that she had told the Grime story.

  This all sounds like an urban legend, said Crease. The corporate coprophile, or whatever you call them. People who, you know. Poopy people.

  It makes sense either way, said Pru. On the one hand, Grime’s eccentric. We knew that from the start. This behavior could be the tip of the iceberg. I mean I’m shocked but I’m not surprised. On the other hand, he could just be feeding Lizzie a line of—well. I don’t think I trust him.

  He hasn’t been an out-and-out liar, said Crease. Has he?

  But he’s kept us in the dark about what it is he’s actually doing for the company, or doing to the company, said Laars. The alcohol made them talk in circles, forget the point. And now, starting tomorrow and thanks to him, we have to swipe in like a bunch of assembly-line workers.

  My father had to swipe in for his job, every day for thirty years, said Lizzie morosely.

  OK, sorry. But my point is that this sucks.

  I can’t believe you’re still talking to him, Crease said to Lizzie.

  Not after today, she said. I agree. The swiping is the last straw.

  Every straw is the last straw, said Pru.

  II (M): Who Moved My Mouse?

  II (M) i: They swiped in the next day, groggy from drinks and uneasy Grime-tinged slumbers. They weren’t sure they were doing it right. The black box by the elevator didn’t beep or click or otherwise acknowledge that the card had successfully gone through. There was barely any friction. It was like waving your hand through the air.

  No one could figure out whether up-down or down-up was the preferred direction. Some of them swiped again, inadvertently swiping themselves out, perhaps creating the impression that they’d worked a forty-second shift.

  Laars got in late because he had to go to the dentist. It was a bruxism emergency. He’d left his mouth guard at the bar last night, and apparently they threw it away. They must have thought it was a big horseshoe of hardened chewing gum.

  I’m fucking so getting fired, he said, swiping in, out, in.

  II (M) ii: Waiting in everyone’s in-box was this message from IT, sent out at 9:11 a.m.:

  Dear Staff,

  Yo…

  I will be making administrative changes to your systems today. I’m going to be connecting to your desktops remotely, so don’t be freaked out if/when your mouse starts behaving erratically and windows start popping up! I need to make sure everything is flowing and need to pinpoint problem areas. Hopefully in a few months we won’t be having as many crashes etc.

  I will do my best to be as unobtrusive as possible and not interrupt your workflow! The changes should only take a minute or two, in most cases, though in some cases I might need a little more time. (I’m also trying to weed out this latest virus.)

  Any questions, please let me know ASAP—

  Later dudes/dudettes,

  Wynn in IT

  II (M) iii: What happened to Big Sal? asked Laars. He disapproved of Wynn’s casual greeting, the surfer sign-off. His inner Bert kicked in.

  Laars had imagined that there
was potential for further bonding with Big Sal, but alas. It wasn’t worth dwelling on. These IT people came and went, much like information itself.

  II (M) iv: Lizzie said she got an e-mail from Jill, who was writing from an Internet café in Sebastopol. She was there with Ben for three months. None of them knew who Ben was, or to be honest where Sebastopol was.

  At least she thought the message was from Jill. The e-mail address was cryptic and the message was signed J. Maybe it was from Jenny, or Jason for that matter. But the tone sounded more like Jill’s.

  Pru said it was the return of the repressed, but she said that about everything.

  In her carefully constructed reply Lizzie mentioned the discovery of The Jilliad, relating their appreciation of that precious document. But the message bounced back.

  Lizzie called up the original e-mail again and noticed that her name was actually misspelled Lizzy and that there was an attachment: a bizarre request for money involving a spendthrift uncle and a hospital in Burkina Faso. She wasn’t able to read the whole thing because her computer crashed.

  II (M) v: Grime left a message for the Sprout on Lizzie’s voice mail. I’m at the airport, Grime said, speaking quickly between squawks of echoing terminal announcements. He was extending his vacation.

  II (M) vi: The transcription of The Jilliad was nearly complete. Pru basically took over the last third. Now she was trying to track down the books that the quotations came from. But Google and Amazon searches failed to turn up any of the titles or authors cited. Lizzie asked a librarian friend to try more specialized lists for the texts in question, but without success.

  II (M) vii: Crease was working on Excel when he suddenly lost control of the cursor. He flipped over his mouse for answers and the red light streamed into his eye. He wondered if he’d develop superpowers like Henry from HR, or at least 20/20 vision.

  The cursor zipped about wildly for a while as if tied to a horsefly. Then it slowly floated to the upper left corner, cruised to the upper right, and twirled across the middle of the screen in a languorous figure eight.