by James Wymore
Gordy got eyeglasses when he was ten, but broke them and never got them replaced after that. He had worn them during the transition when he first got them and the street under his feet had looked like it was up under his chin. Then, one day it just suddenly adjusted to look normal. It happened so fast that he thought the glasses had dropped off his face. Some trick of the brain, the doctor had explained. They had thought Gordy’s trouble with reading had been that he couldn’t see. That wasn’t it.
Still, he wondered if reading was like the glasses, in that the brain just needed to be tricked from seeing the lines and letters to understanding what they meant like the adjustment to the glasses.
Gordy stared and waited.
He kind of knew the word “don’t.” Most rules started with that one from what he saw from the classroom walls. These all started different ways so that wasn’t much help. Gordy had heard in the faculty meetings as he emptied trash after school that the new hippie way of teaching was to start rules with “do,” so that the kids felt more empowered. As far as he could tell, the kids ran the school, so they seemed empowered enough to him. These didn’t seem to start with “do” either though. Maybe the Z-word Arab gods had a different way of writing their rules.
Gordy sighed. He thought he knew some of the letters, but maybe this was Arab writing and staring at it all day wouldn’t help an American Baptist read it.
Gordy stood up and dressed. As he started to doze, he held the beach picture in his open palm on the cot. “This isn’t helping me none, Arab gods. You can have it back. Now you don’t have to rough me up in the night to take it.”
When he awoke, the picture was still clutched between his fingers.
He sat up and pocketed it. “Did I learn something, so I get to keep it now? Do I get to keep things touching my hand or sitting in my pocket?”
He stood up and stretched. Probably in the rules somewhere .
Gordy splashed his face and cupped water up to his mouth even though he knew that he could ask for a cup of something and pour it out to use that. Non-alcoholic and can’t get an empty cup. Those are the rules, I guess .
Gordy said, “I want…”
He stared at the empty shelf for several seconds. He imagined tiny fairies with red roach wings waiting behind the wall to instantly cook anything he asked for. He couldn’t think of the end of his sentence though.
He stepped away and pulled down the ladder. Gordy stopped and considered taking the blanket. He supposed that it didn’t matter if each room had one identical to it. He also suspected that it would magically find its way back to the cot once he fell asleep unless he could find a way to cram the thing into his pocket.
Gordy climbed back into the attic and looked past the brooms. The bicycle and thorn pictures were still over in the sleeve. He thought about them for a moment and then turned away. None of the pictures he had seen so far were his, but the beach picture spoke to him more than the others, so he turned away and followed the plywood track away from where he’d been.
He crossed about a football field worth of clutter and lightbulbs including several more hatches. Gordy ducked around some moving boxes filled with dresses. Beyond them were filing cabinets. He worked the latch on the drawer marked with a handwritten G on a faded card. More random pictures filled manila folders in the drawer. None of them seemed to have any connection to G sounds that he could tell.
He found one black and white image of a rock with writing scribbled on it in haphazard paint. He couldn’t read any of it, but it reminded him of a rock he used to jump off of into a pond as a kid. He pocketed that one with the beach picture. These photos had to be here for a reason.
Gordy left the cabinets and pushed down the hatch in front of him with his foot. The room looked identical to the others. Gordy figured he could stop anywhere, so he might as well keep going for a while.
He could have kept going on Earth too, and wouldn’t have ended up in this attic. He supposed it was going to happen sooner or later. The Z word wasn’t going to come up in church in any useful way even if he lived another hundred years. Might as well get started now .
Gordy fished through another open box to find a bunch of dog-eared novels with the covers torn off. Someone had told him that meant they were stolen, but why would anyone steal an old book?
Gordy stepped over a pipe and continued along the plywood. Maybe one of these boxes has one of those starter readers. I seem to have all the time in the world now . “Maybe it’s not too late to learn a thing or two about a thing or two.” Once I can read the rules, I’ll know how to get out of here. “Lickety split and Bob’s your uncle.”
Gordy had his doubts, but he kept going past another lightbulb and another hatch.
itchell Freeman looked around. He was home, in Boise, Idaho. He could see the cross up on Table Rock, and Bogus Mountain where he and his family went skiing. It was a beautiful late spring day. He thought it was winter, before the dream of going to Hell, and he vaguely remembered a car accident, but he must have dreamed that, too. He was in the student center at Boise State and the clock in the main seating area said eight-thirty.
“It was a dream.”
The man in front of him turned to look at him. “Excuse me?”
Mitchell realized he had spoken the sentiment instead of thought it. “I’m sorry. I was just… I guess I had a dream.”
“The office demon?”
Mitchell blinked. “What?”
The man shook his head. “No, it wasn’t a dream. I had it too. I had a few too many drinks after the big game and passed out.” The man gestured to the room. “Dunno how I ended up here.” His eyes wandered across the breasts of a young co-ed that bounced by in a BSU tank top. “I fail to see how this is Hell.”
“What can I get for you, Carl?”
“Hi, Cutie.” Carl looked at the menu.
Three young men were getting refills at the counter where Airpots of regular and decaf coffee stood vigilant beside flavor syrups and Sugar in the Raw.
“I heard a convention in Australia almost lost a big backer just because Adam Baldwin was signed on to be a guest. Of course they’d sign him! He’s Jayne.” The man pointed to his Hero of Canton shirt.
“Why’d they almost lose the backer?” The black kid tore open a Sugar in the Raw packet and dumped it in his coffee.
“Some chick blew her brains out.”
The third guy, sporting a letterman jacket from Kuna High School stirred his cup with a plastic straw. “Did they think Jayne had something to do with it?”
The Jayne fan shook his head. “Who knows why women do these things? Probably did it for the attention.”
The letterman walked off to sit at a nearby table. The other two men snapped plastic lids on their cups, their conversation interrupted momentarily by a blonde girl in BSU track gear. She excused herself as she reached over and got a lid for her own cup.
The Jayne fan’s cup bumped the counter, splashing a little coffee on the Formica. “Dammit!” He reached for a napkin, his arm brushing the girl’s breast in the process.
She stepped back and turned away, not looking back. The two boys smiled at each other and exchanged a fist bump, the spill and napkin forgotten in the victory celebration.
“Can I get you something, Mitchell?”
Mitchell looked at the girl taking orders and money, then at her coffee shop shirt, but she didn’t have a name tag. Neither did the other girl in the snug t-shirt making the orders. He glanced around the other food service areas and saw name tags of glimmering gold on several other workers. He guessed this establishment didn’t require them.
“Tall vanilla latte, please. Thanks, hon.”
She wrote his order and name on the cup.
Mitchell smiled. “You look very cute today. Carl had the right of it.”
The girl smiled, focusing on the cash register.
He handed her a five and two ones. “Keep the change.”
“Thanks, Mitchell!”
H
e stood off to the side, then stepped closer to Carl. “So, you saw the office demon too?”
“Yeah. Not sure how long it’s been, to be honest.”
“What do you know?”
“Well, everything is pretty much normal. I wasn’t even sure I was in Hell at first. Then I told our secretary at work she had a nice ass.”
Mitchell was stunned.
Carl shrugged. “It was true. I’ll admit, before I died, I would have stopped myself from getting in trouble. But here? There are no ramifications. She didn’t report me or anything. So, if I see a nice-looking woman, I can finally compliment her without risking a lawsuit.”
“Why would you think that was trouble?”
“Well, I’m a married man. She’s a good looking woman. That’s just asking for trouble.”
Mitchell nodded, seeing his point. He liked the idea of not having to worry about every little thing he said. “I hear ya. I’m all for equal rights for women, but they have to stop taking offense at every little thing. If I compliment a woman, I’m not insulting her.” Mitchell noticed Carl’s name stitched above an official ISU logo on his shirt. “So, what do you do, Carl?”
“I’m the assistant football coach at ISU. We’re here for the conference regarding scholarships for players. You?”
“Admin. Campus security. I don’t walk the beat, just do the paperwork.”
“I’ll try not to make any extra work for you.” He turned as the barista called his name and then placed the cup on the counter. “Have a good one,” he said.
“There were two rapes reported last night and three suicides in the dorms.”
Alan Johnson handed him the reports from the night shift. “This keeps up, those women’s dorms are gonna be empty soon.”
Mitchell looked at the reports. Frat parties. “Why do girls go to these things if they’re just going to claim rape?”
Alan shrugged. “I don’t get it. One of them says she thinks she was drugged, but of course the test came back negative. She had been drinking though.”
“In that case, it could have been slipped in the drink.”
“Yeah, but unless she can identify her attacker, it doesn’t matter. The hospital collected a rape kit, but the rapist must have used a condom. No semen.”
Mitchell looked at Alan. “What did the witnesses say?”
“That she showed up drunk. No one invited her but she was hot, so they let her in. They also said they don’t allow date rape drugs in the house so if she was drugged, it didn’t happen there.”
“Did the police get a copy of this report?”
“Well, that’s up to you. We can’t tell if there’s an actual crime. It’s just he said, she said crap.”
Mitchell looked over the reports. “There’s nothing here to convict. The cops won’t be able to do anything. I’m going to spare this girl the further humiliation of an investigation. The cops will put her through hell, then say nothing can be done.”
“What about the other one?”
He read the report. “She showered. No physical evidence to collect.”
“Her roommate said she came in looking like hell so they got her cleaned up, then called us. We sent a couple guys to take her statement.”
“Well, we can’t do anything if they wash away the evidence.” Mitchell picked up the suicide reports. They were odd. “Self-inflicted gun shots?” He shifted between pages. “All four?”
“It’s all the rage, apparently.”
Mitchell shook his head. “Women don’t typically go out like this. Too messy. They use pills so they can leave a fashionable corpse, and be easier on the person who finds the body. This…”
This was a man’s choice. Quick. Hard. Masculine.
Alan shifted, his face revealing he had something to say that was uncomfortable.
“What is it, Alan?”
“I don’t get it. What’s the point of this place?”
Mitchell put the reports down. “When did you get here?”
“Today. But I don’t know you. You’re not my boss.” He nodded to the nameplate on Mitchell’s desk. “The only reason I know who you are is because of that, and that you’re in the right office.”
Mitchell frowned. Alan was right. Mitchell didn’t know him. He behaved just like his security shift chief, but he only knew his name because it said Alan Johnson, Campus Security on his badge.
Mitchell bit his lip. “I met someone today who said he didn’t know how long he’d been here. Have you met anyone like that yet?”
“Yeah. Bennie from Nampa. Though now that I think about it, he might have been talking about how long he’d been working here.”
“Let’s get everyone together. Can you find Carl, the assistant football coach at ISU? He’s here for the conference regarding athlete scholarships.”
“You want him here right away?”
Mitchell thought about it. “No. Just give him my card. Ask him to call me when he gets a break.” He pulled a business card from a holder on his desk and handed it to Alan. “And send in Bennie, if he’s still here.”
“He may have gone home already. His wife is having a baby soon.”
“Check, please, and let me know.”
Alan left and Mitchell pulled out his cell phone. His wife’s number was in there, under “Honey-Pot.” His daughters were too, under “Princess” and “Kitten.” He’d been calling the girls those pet names since they were only babies. He furrowed his brow as he glanced at the others in his texting list.
Blondie. Tuna Salad. Front Desk. Charles. Mike. Tight Skirt. Gerry. His dad, Paul. Blue Eyes. Dispatch.
He recognized everyone there, so to speak. What is the point of this Hell?
Bennie had gone home, but Alan left a message with Dispatch that he found Carl and delivered the card. Carl called about noon.
“What can I do for you, Mitchell?”
“You said you’ve been here a while. What have you figured out?”
“Not much.”
“Have you traveled much?”
“Oh yeah. There’s always a conference somewhere.”
“Is it the same everywhere?”
“Pretty much. I attend games. Coach players. Attend meetings.”
“Do they have a lot of suicides at other campuses?”
Carl got quiet.
“Carl?”
“Why don’t we meet for lunch and talk?”
“Sure. Where?”
“Your office. This isn’t a conversation for a public place.”
“Sure. Do you want to order from Jimmy John’s?”
“No. And you won’t either. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
When Carl arrived, Mitchell had a fresh pot of coffee brewed on his personal coffee maker. He had thought about getting a Keurig, but the cup things were too expensive. It crossed his mind that here in Hell, that might not be the case. He offered the coach a cup.
“Sure.”
Mitchell poured him a cup in a BSU Security mug. “There’s creamer and sugar if you need it. I don’t have any fancy syrups.”
Carl walked over to the coffee station and helped himself the Coffee-Mate and sugar, using the metal spoon next to the carafe. Mitchell stirred his own drink and set the spoon down; it looked like residual coffee spreading like cancer on a napkin. He waited for Carl to say something.
Carl sighed. “So, yes. There are similar situations everywhere. There are lots of suicides, but here’s the weird part: they’re all women.”
“All?”
“Yeah. Every one. Usually after something like a rape, but that isn’t always the case.” He set his cup on the desk. “Something else strange about this place: women are never in groups larger than two.”
Mitchell’s face curled in disbelief. “That can’t be. I have a wife and two daughters.”
“You haven’t been home yet, I imagine. Look in the phone book. There are no sororities, just fraternities. Guys can gather at will and often do, but you’ll see two women working the coun
ter at a shop, like the coffee place this morning. Never more. If you walk around here after dark, never more than two together. Parties have girls at them, but there’s never more than two talking to each other and usually, they’re isolated, but surrounded by guys.”
Mitchell shrugged, folding his hands on his desk blotter. “This must be heaven for them. All that attention.”
Carl winced a little, like maybe he had a different opinion. “Have you been online yet?”
Mitchell shook his head. Carl nodded toward the computer. Mitchell fired it up and logged in with his password by rote. It worked. The home page for the campus was the current quarterback flanked by two pretty blonde cheerleaders. He clicked on the link for Yahoo!, which was a way to get into the Internet from a restricted system. The first page celebrated Spring Break with two bikini-clad girls tossing a beach ball.
“What am I looking for?”
“Look up the number of suicides in, oh, just do Boise.”
Mitchell typed. “Time frame?”
“The last decade.”
More typing. They waited.
“Hunh. It says there’s no data available.”
“Now search for assaults against women.”
Typing. Waiting.
“Again, no data available.”
Carl leaned on the desk. He pointed at the back of the flat screen monitor. “Now, look up BSU’s win-loss record.”
Typing, then Mitchell sat back, surprised. “Wow. That was fast. I’ve got the stats from, geez, every year since we had a sports team.” He scrolled. “Man, any sports team.”
“You can look up anything you like about history, the Bible, sports, politics, activism, science… Damn near anything you like. Almost.”
“Hey, we had a really impressive run from ‘06-’12 under Chris Petersen! Ninety-two wins to twelve losses. I didn’t realize it was that long.”
“Oh! Look up WSU for me! I was talking about them this morning.”
A knock came at Mitchell’s door. Alan was there with the other security officers from the department.
“Ah. Thanks, Alan. C’mon in. Please, introduce yourselves and tell me how long you’ve been here.”