Screaming to Get Out & Other Wailings of the Damned

by J. F. Gonzalez

  “Fine.” I picked up the wooden framed photo of Jennifer and Ray, mother and son captured splendidly at the beach last summer, and placed it in my briefcase with the other stuff.

  “Thank you.” Donald’s smile beamed, but I detected a sense of falsehood in it. “Now, where were we?”

  We went over the account and I tried to pay attention as Donald explained the account’s history. Fortunately this was something I had run across before in my last job, and Donald left quickly when he realized I understood the gist of the issues. He toddled off to a meeting while I sat in front of my computer staring at the screen, my mind still on our conversation about the company policy regarding personal photos decorating one’s workspace.

  It sounded absurd, and I was sure that if this was mentioned in orientation I had been absent, probably in the men’s room. I pulled down the three-ring binder that contained my copy of the Policy and Procedures manual and flipped through it for the first time, wondering where to start.

  The table of contents was filled with the obvious HR headings. I quickly scanned it until I saw the heading labeled ‘Your Personal Workspace’, and turned to it.

  I had to read the short paragraph three times before it hit me that it was real.

  Employees must keep their workspace in a neat and orderly fashion at all times. At no time are personal items such as photos, drawings, or other decorations, allowed to be visible at an employee’s workspace. Personal items, such as purses and pocketbooks, must be stowed away either under the desk, or in a spare drawer during the duration of the workday and must remain so during working hours.

  I was stunned. In all my years of working for large corporations, I’d never run across such oppressive rules.

  I was just about to flip through the manual in a search for similar governing decrees of lunacy when one of my co-workers, Bob Little, called me over. “Hey Jesse! You over there? I got a project for you.”

  I closed the Policy and Procedures Manual and went over to Bob’s cubicle to see what he wanted.

  I DON’T THINK I mentioned the incident to Jennifer that week. I tried to keep work out of our lives when we were at home. If there was one thing we both couldn’t stand, it was talking about the petty issues our co-workers became involved with.

  I didn’t mention it to Cathy, the department secretary, either. She put on a stoical face and blazed through her duties like an automaton, her only glimpse of humanity when I greeted her every morning with a “Good Morning” as I passed her desk on my way to my cubicle. By the end of that week, she began to respond with more than just a muffled acknowledgement in return. She actually began to offer me a faint smile in return, and even began saying hello when we passed each other in the halls.

  The job was busy and it kept me occupied from the moment I arrived till I tore myself away from my desk to leave for home. My workday was from eight a.m. to five p.m. Monday through Friday; normal hours for most work places. In the first week of my employment I didn’t notice anything outwardly unusual, with the exception of Donald’s overly harsh refusal to allow Cathy earned time off to attend her daughter’s recital.

  But by the end of the second week I began to notice something was seriously amiss.

  It became apparent to me when my cell phone rang late Thursday afternoon of my second week. I started, turned my eyes away from the Excel spreadsheet I had been working on for the past four hours, and answered. It was my wife, Jennifer.

  “Where are you?” She asked.

  “I’m here, at work.”

  “Couldn’t you call me when you have to stay late at the office?”

  I turned around to glance at the plain white clock that was mounted on a wall in the center of the office. It was just after six p.m. I should have been home over thirty minutes ago. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize the time had gotten away from me so quickly.”

  “Since when did you become a workaholic?” Jennifer’s tone was kidding, and even though I knew she was joking, something about what she said got to me. After telling her I was leaving, I hung up and took a subtle glance at my surroundings.

  I could see Donald in his office typing at his computer keyboard. Two cubicles over I heard Barbara Rodriguez, one of my co-workers, talking on the phone with somebody about a project. Bernie Shull, an analyst who occupied the cube directly across from me, was working on something. And across the room, in the IT department, I could hear their department secretary answering the phone.

  I looked at the spreadsheet I was working on. The company was working on a big account, one that my department and IT were developing together. The deadline for it was looming, and I’d overheard a few of my fellow co-workers talking about burning the midnight oil the last few days to get it completed. I’m not averse to such work, having done it on occasion myself. But there was something about the way all of us had simultaneously worked past five o’clock, seemingly oblivious to resuming our lives outside of work. It creeped me out.

  I was more than halfway done with my piece of the project, so I saved the file I was working on and shut down my PC. I felt a strange sense of vertigo, as if I had been rudely awakened from a deep sleep. I quickly stepped out of my cube and headed down the hallway of cubicles, glanced quickly at Cathy’s workstation and saw she was still there. I paused momentarily, casting a quick glance behind me at Donald’s office; his back was to us, working on his piece of the project. I looked at Cathy and saw she had been crying silently. “Are you okay?” I whispered.

  She glanced at me quickly, nodded, and turned back to her desk. Whatever she was doing, she wasn’t doing it. She was merely sitting in front of her computer screen, morose and depressed.

  I felt torn between wanting to help and just going home. Deciding it would be wise to cut out now before Donald saw me, I whispered to Cathy, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” and started leaving.

  “You’re leaving?” Her whisper was almost a screech. I stopped and saw that she was livid with fear.

  “Yeah,” I said, my voice low. “I gotta get going. I didn’t realize what time it was and—”

  Cathy cast a quick glance back at Donald’s office, then turned back to me. She put a finger to her lips and then waved me out. “Go!” she whispered. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  Now I was puzzled. Had I violated another company policy unknowingly?

  That was foremost on my mind as I drove home. It was already dark as I piloted the Acura through the suburban streets of my neighborhood toward my house. I thought about how every cubicle, every office I passed on my way to the elevators was still occupied by my co-workers, some who I knew had families and spouses waiting for them at home. I thought about Cathy’s expression as I left, as if she desperately wanted to go home but couldn’t because she was afraid of the consequences.

  I put on a neutral face when I entered the house. Jennifer was on the sofa reading a magazine. Ray was playing with his toys on the living room floor. Jennifer looked up as I entered the house. “Good! You’re home!” She got up and headed to the kitchen to finish preparing dinner while I cast aside my worries of work and bent down to hug what was most important in my life: my son.

  NEVERTHELESS, DESPITE BEING surrounded that evening by what I loved and lived for the most—my family—the comfort they provided didn’t dull the worm of unease that had begun to gnaw in me.

  I slept very badly that night.

  THE FIRST THING I noticed when I arrived at the office the following morning—a full fifteen minutes before eight o’clock—was that everybody was at their desks and in their cubicles working.

  It was as if they hadn’t even left.

  Cathy’s workstation was empty as I passed it, her computer screen dark. I wondered if she was okay, and as I sat down at my desk and fired up my computer I sensed the approach of Donald as he lumbered forth. “Good! You’re here. I’d like to see you in my office, please.”

  “Sure.” I got up and tried to pretend nothing was wrong as I followed him in
to his office. Donald motioned to an empty seat in front of his desk and I sat down. I noticed that Donald did not close the door.

  He seated his considerable bulk down in his chair and got right to the point. “I didn’t notice you leave yesterday. When did you take off?”

  “Shortly after six,” I replied.

  “Really? Did you finish your project?”

  “No. I’ll probably finish it today.”

  “That’s not a good enough answer. You should have stayed and finished.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Donald looked at me as if I were some slow, stupid child, one he disapproved of.

  “What do you have to say?”

  Again, I was at a loss for words. No deadline had been specified for the completion of the project, but I had made it a personal goal to have my report on Donald's desk by Friday, today. I was eighty percent finished already, and knew I could complete it before my deadline. If I'd had the slightest bit of doubt, I would have taken it home last night and worked on it a little on the computer in the family room before retiring to bed.

  Donald was looking at me as if he was expecting me to apologize for some serious wrongdoing. I didn’t know what kind of rule I’d broken, so I shrugged. “I...don’t understand...”

  Donald sighed and leaned forward over his desk. “Let me spell it out for you then, Jesse. I understand you’re new here, but we at Braun and Meyer's are driven by the singular purpose of helping the company succeed. Our goal is to be the dominant Financial Consulting firm in the industry and then, eventually, the largest grossing corporation in the world. That Free State Account is an important one. If we can nab that, B&M will have the highest earnings in our industry. It’s extremely important that we secure this account.”

  “I understand that, but what does that have to do with my leaving at six o’clock last night?” I asked. “I left an hour late.”

  “And most of us were here until two-thirty a.m.,” Donald said, his words cutting into me sharply. Now he really looked irritated. “Some of the IT guys are still here.” He paused. “Do you understand?”

  I didn’t understand, but I couldn’t tell him that anymore. I think I was finally beginning to get what was happening, at least as far as Donald was concerned. The man was a workaholic who expected his subordinates to work themselves as ragged as he. No wonder Cathy was always depressed.

  “Well?”

  I nodded. “I understand.”

  “It’s important you understand your position with B&M, Mr. Lopez. You were hired as a Business Intelligence Analyst. That is what you do. It is what we pay you to do and it is what you are. There are certain responsibilities to the company you must maintain if you are to hold onto this role. Do you understand?”

  I fought the urge to say next time a project is that important, please convey this to your employees. Nobody told me we were burning the midnight oil to finish this thing ahead of schedule. Instead I nodded. “I understand.”

  “Good.” Apparently the matter was dismissed. Donald leaned back in his chair and regarded me with those piggy eyes. “I’d like that report on my desk before noon.”

  “No problem,” I said, getting up. “I should finish it in about an hour or so.”

  When I headed back to my cube I saw Cathy had arrived. She looked haggard. Her eyes held mine briefly as I passed. When I sat down at my cubicle I tried to act as if everything was normal as I started my workday.

  AS PROMISED, I finished my report and had it on Donald’s desk well before noon. By two o'clock the revisions were in place and we had a three o’clock staff meeting to wrap up the final phase of the project. During the meeting I sensed a vague sense of hostility and resentment from some of the other members of my department (or, my team as Donald kept referring to us; we were a team, like the fucking Red Sox or something), probably over my leaving at six o’clock yesterday. By that point I had dismissed the whole thing. Because it hadn’t been properly communicated to me that everybody was working late last night and I left before everybody else did, I wasn’t going to feel guilty about it.

  I wound up feeling guilty anyway over my refusal to stand up for Cathy when she was brought in to the meeting.

  Donald asked me to get Cathy mid-way through and I did so, not thinking anything of it. When I told her Donald wanted her in the meeting, she got a look of extreme horror on her face. “Oh God, no,” she whispered. She actually trembled.

  “What’s wrong?” Her reaction alarmed me.

  “Nothing,” she said quickly. She gathered her things and stood up, her features becoming stony and professional. “Let’s go.”

  She followed me to the conference room and found a seat. Donald asked Cathy to report her progress on the Free State project and she did so. When she was finished she looked down at her report, refusing to look up as if afraid of being physically assaulted or something. Donald nodded, seemingly pleased. “Very well done, Cathy. I’m very pleased with the way this has turned out. We’ve put in a lot of hours to get this project completed and it’s done. We’ll submit it first thing Monday morning.” He nodded to Kelly, the IT tech who had been invited to the meeting. Kelly rose from his seat and moved the TV and VCR into position at the front of the room. “It’s time for some discipline training. It appears Cathy needs some additional training due to her blatant disregard to company policy and Jesse Lopez, our new Analyst, hasn’t been exposed to this kind of hands-on demonstration yet. Kelly?”

  Kelly had a big smile on his face, as if he had been looking forward to this all day. He turned off the lights in the room and turned on the TV, which was hooked up to his laptop computer. He pressed a couple of keys and a picture came on the screen.

  Cathy said, “Oh God, please don’t do this!”

  The sound of her voice scared me. I looked up in alarm, but Cathy was already being counseled by Barbara. I almost got the impression Barbara was trying to get Cathy to watch what was on the screen, and was trying to keep her from bolting out of the room as well.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. I felt Bernie’s hand on my leg a moment later as he leaned close to me, his voice lowered as he told me to watch the screen.

  The screen showed the front of a school. Traffic was heavy. “There’s a lot of traffic in this area,” Donald said. “So much that they’ve had to hire a crossing guard after two children were hit by cars while attempting to cross the street. One of them died.” It looked like Donald glanced at Cathy. “Isn’t that right, Cathy?”

  Cathy was crying. “Please don’t—”

  Donald ignored her, his face turned to the screen. “Ah! There’s the crossing guard now! We’re just in time.” Donald plucked his cell phone out of his breast pocket, his pudgy finger poised over the buttons. “Why don’t I have our associate, who is assisting us with this lesson, call the crossing guard over and inform her that her superior has decided to let her go. She works for the city, and our associate possesses the necessary identification that will be enough to convince her to leave her post. Your daughter will be leaving class in about ten minutes, Cathy, and I hear she is a bit careless about crossing the street."

  “Are you people insane?” I barely recognized my own voice. I felt panicked, scared. “What the fuck is this?”

  Bernie and Kelly took me by each elbow, their grips firm, their underlying message clear: shut up and watch. Their presence was intimidating. It only made me more infuriated.

  Cathy was hysterical. “Please! Stop this! I swear to God—”

  “This is your second strike, Cathy,” Donald said, his voice devoid of emotion. “You know what will happen in a third strike.”

  “I promise I won’t do it again!” Cathy cried. She looked awful as she cried. She was a pretty woman, and she looked absolutely awful when she cried.

  “This is fucking bullshit!” I said. I tried to get up. An explosion of pain erupted in my kidney as Kelly kneed me. I crumpled to the floor, clutching my side as agony rocked my body.

  Donald pressed
a button on the cell phone and held it to his ear. I was barely aware of what was going on around me. All I was aware of was the intense pain in my lower right side and Donald’s voice as he instructed his contact to proceed as planned.

  “Nooo!!” Cathy screamed. I was dimly aware she was being restrained by Barbara and another woman.

  I tried to rise to my feet but firm, rough hands held me down. I struggled, cursing under my breath. “Get your fucking hands off me!”

  “Shut up or I’ll bash your skull in.” Kelly was standing over me, right foot cocked back, ready to unleash a kick. I caught a glimpse of the mad look in his eyes and I stopped struggling immediately. My eyes flicked to the screen. A man in a suit was now talking to the crossing guard. I watched as he led her by the elbow off screen. The crossing guard—a middle-aged African American woman—looked puzzled.

  I don’t know how long Cathy and I were held down, forced to watch this atrocity. It felt like hours but I know it wasn’t that long. In reality it was more like fifteen minutes.

  But it seemed to stretch into infinity.

  I noticed how heavy the traffic was the minute the crossing guard was led away.

  A moment later, the bell rang.

  Children began pouring out of the school.

  I could dimly make out Cathy’s voice as she cried and begged them to let her go, to stop doing this. I could only watch, hoping against all hope that Cathy’s daughter would not wander out into the street distracted. I hoped some school administrator would see what was going on and summon somebody, a teacher perhaps, to direct traffic and escort the kids across the street.