I was acutely conscious, the next few days, of everything I did, everything I said, and I was both horrified and discouraged to discover that, yes, I really was thoroughly and consistently unexceptional. My conversations with Jane were banal, my work was never less or more than adequate. No wonder Craig had not remembered me. I seemed to be so average in every way that I was entirely forgettable.
Was I also average in bed?
It was a question that, in one version or another, had been haunting me for some time, even before I’d seen Craig, lurking in the back of my mind when I was with Jane, unfocused but there, a vague threat. Now it had been, if not voiced, at least given shape, and I knew it would not go away. I tried to push it out of my mind, tried not to think of it when we were together, when were eating or talking or taking a shower or lying in bed, but it gnawed at me, growing in my brain from a whisper to a shout until I felt compelled to bring it up.
On Saturday evening, as always, we made love, doing it during the half-hour local news before Saturday Night Live. I did not usually analyze our love-making while it was happening, did not examine what we were doing or why we were doing it, but I found myself watching from a distance this time, as though I were a camera, and I realized how limited were my moves, how scripted my responses, how boring and goddamn predictable everything was. I had a difficult time maintaining an erection, and I had to force myself to concentrate in order to finish.
Afterward, I rolled off her, spent, breathing heavily, and stared up at the ceiling, thinking about my performance. I would have liked to believe that it was great, that I was a true stud, but I knew that was not the case. I was average.
My penis was probably the average size.
I probably gave her the average number of orgasms.
I looked over at Jane. Even now, perhaps especially now, hot and sweaty in the aftermath of sex, hair clumped in damp tangles, she looked beautiful. I had always known that she could do a lot better than me, that she was pretty enough, intelligent enough, interesting enough to attract someone superior to myself, but it was suddenly brought home to me in a way that was almost painful.
I touched her shoulder, gently, tentatively. “How was it?” I asked.
She looked at me. “What?”
“Did you… come?”
“Of course.” She frowned. “What’s wrong with you? You’ve been acting weird all night.”
I wanted to explain to her how I felt, but I couldn’t.
I shook my head, said nothing.
“Bob?” she said.
I guess what I really wanted was to be reassured, to hear her say that I was not average, that I was special, that I was great, but in my mind I could hear her trying to assuage my fears by saying, “I love you even though you’re average.” Which was not what I wanted to hear.
Her mother’s words echoed in my head: “…a nothing… a nobody…”
That was how I felt.
What would happen, I wondered, if she met someone with more skillful hands, a faster tongue, a bigger penis?
I didn’t even want to think about that.
“I… love you,” I said.
She looked surprised, and her expression softened. “I love you, too.” She kissed me on the mouth, on the nose, on the forehead, and we snuggled together and pulled the blanket higher and watched TV until we fell asleep.
SEVEN
Acknowledgment of my mediocrity only seemed to hasten my fade into the woodwork. Even Hope no longer spoke to me unless I addressed her first, and more than once it seemed that she’d forgotten I worked at Automated Interface. It was as if I were becoming a shade within the corporation, a ghost in the machine.
The weather changed, became warmer, became summer. I felt melancholy, sad. Sunny days always made me feel that way. The sharp contrast between the blue beauty of a summer sky and the drab grayness of my life made the difference between my dreams and my reality seem that much more pronounced.
I was working full-time on GeoComm now, writing a real instruction manual, not playing around with the piddly-ass projects to which I’d previously been assigned. I was given access to computer screens by the programmers; I was given demonstrations of the system; I was allowed to play around with the system on one of the terminals in the test facility. I suppose the work could have been considered challenging—could have, had I had any interest in it at all. But I did not. Assistant Coordinator of Interoffice Procedures and Phase II Documentation was a job I had taken not out of choice but out of necessity, and its specifics held no allure for me.
The one person who did not ignore me was Stewart. He seemed more hostile than ever. I was a constant source of irritation to him. The fact that Banks, or someone above Banks, had decided to let me work on a legitimate project made him furious, and at least once each day he would come into the office, nod to Derek, then move in front of my desk and stand there, looking down at whatever I was working on. He would not say anything, would not ask me what I was doing, would simply stand there, staring. It annoyed me and he knew it annoyed me, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of letting my feelings show. I would ignore him, concentrate on the work in front of me, and wait him out. Eventually, he would leave.
I’d watch him go, and I’d want to just punch him.
I’d never been a violent person. Even my revenge fantasies had usually involved humiliation, not physical harm. But something about Stewart made me want to just beat the living shit out of him.
Not that I could.
He was in a hell of a lot better shape than I was, and I had no doubt that he could’ve easily kicked my ass.
I finished documenting the functions from the first GeoComm submenu. I gave the instructions to Stewart, who supposedly gave them to Banks. I heard nothing back from either of them and began work on the system’s second submenu.
It was Thursday, the day of Jane’s night class, and though we didn’t usually have sex on Thursdays because she got home late and tired, I convinced her to do it this time. Afterward, I rolled off her. We’d done it in the missionary position, I realized. We always did it in the missionary position.
We were silent for a moment, lying next to each other. Jane reached for the remote and turned on the TV. A cop show was on.
“Did you come?” I asked her finally.
“Yes.”
“More than once?”
She propped herself up on one elbow. “Not this again. Am I going to have to reassure you each time we make love?”
“Sorry I asked.”
“What do you want from me? I came, you know I came, and you still have to ask me about it.”
“I thought maybe you were faking it.”
“I’ve had enough of this.” Angrily, she pulled up the covers, bunching them beneath her chin. “If I knew I was going to have to go through all this crap again, we wouldn’t’ve done it at all.”
I looked at her, hurt and trying to show it. “You don’t like having sex with me.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!”
“How am I supposed to feel, huh? I mean, how do you feel about me? Do you still love me? Would you still love me if we met today for the first time?”
“I’m only going to say this once, okay? Yes, I love you. Now that’s it. End of discussion. Drop it and go to sleep.”
“Okay,” I said. “Fine.” I was angry with her, but there was really no reason for me to be angry.
We turned away from each other and fell asleep to the sounds of the television.
EIGHT
I began to see flyers for Automated Interface’s annual employee picnic tacked up on the bulletin board in the break room, taped to the doors of our department. I ignored the flyers, preferring not to think about the picnic, though I overheard the programmers talking about it. The event seemed to be a biggie, and apparently, from what I gathered, attendance was required.
Required attendance. That was what bothered me. I knew that I would have no one to go with, no friend to sit next to, and the
idea of sitting alone at a picnic table while everyone else around me talked and laughed and visited and had a great time worried me.
I worried more and more about the picnic as the flyers proliferated, as conversational references became more common. It was turning into an honest-to-God obsession. As the week, and then the day, grew closer, I found myself hoping absurdly that some sort of natural disaster would occur and prevent the event from taking place.
On Tuesday, the night before the picnic, I even considered calling in sick.
I don’t know what prompted this almost pathological fear of the picnic, but I suspect it was a combination of things: my inability to fit in at work, the recent discovery of how hopelessly average I was, the increasing rockiness of my relationship with Jane. My self-esteem and self-confidence were at an all-time low, and I didn’t think my ego could stand the sort of bashing the picnic would provide. Like Charlie Brown said, “I know no one likes me. Why do we have to have holidays to remind me of it?”
This wasn’t exactly a holiday, but it followed the same principle. I was nothing, I was invisible, and this would only serve to bring it home.
The picnic was scheduled to start at noon and finish at two and was being held in the oversized greenbelt behind the Automated Interface building. At eleven forty-five, the toadlike man from upstairs who ate lunch with Derek stopped by the office, said “Ready?” and he and Derek went out to the picnic. Neither of them spoke to me, neither of them invited me to accompany them, and although I hadn’t expected them to invite me to come along, the fact that they didn’t pissed me off.
In the hallway, I heard other voices, saw other people pass by, but I remained at my desk. I wondered if I could close the door and stay here, hide and not go. No one would notice if I was missing. No one would know if I didn’t show up.
There was an interruption of the Muzak piped over the building’s speakers, and a deep-voiced man announced: “The annual employee picnic has now started. All employees must attend. Repeat. The annual employee picnic has now started. All employees must attend.”
I should’ve called in sick, I thought.
I waited a moment, then stood slowly and walked out of the office and down the hall to the elevator. The elevator stopped on the other two floors, and by the time we reached the lobby, it was packed. There were even more people in the lobby—employees from the first floor, others who had taken the stairs—and I followed the crowd across the floor of the lobby through the rear double doors. We walked through a short corridor, then through a door that opened outside onto the back of the building. I stood for a moment at the top of the steps, letting everyone pass by me. Rows of picnic tables were now set up on the previously virgin grass. A portable stage with a canvas roof had been wheeled in from somewhere and sat at the head of the tables, facing the side parking lot. Long banquet tables covered with white tablecloths and piled high with salads, desserts, and main dishes were being added to and overseen by a group of busy women. A series of garbage cans filled with soft drinks and ice cubes lined the area of the lawn nearest the building.
I stood there for a moment, not sure what to do, not knowing if I should go out and grab some chow, or find a place to sit and wait until other people started eating first. From here, I had a clear view of the knolly landscaped greenbelts of the adjacent companies, and it was almost like looking into their backyards. I had a sudden vision of these buildings as giant houses, the greenbelts their yards, the parking lots their driveways.
Most of the people were looking for friends, finding seats, but a few had grabbed plates and gotten into line for the food and I followed their example. I took a can of Coke from one of the garbage cans and piled my paper plate high with hot dogs, chili beans, potato salad, and chips. The picnic table at which Banks, Stewart, the programmers, Hope, Virginia, and Lois sat was full, there was no room for me, so I looked around for an empty seat at one of the other tables. There were several open spots at a table occupied by a group of old women, and I walked over there, carrying my plate. No one was staring at me as I walked across the grass, no one was pointing or giggling, no one was taking any notice of me. I was totally inconspicuous; I blended perfectly into the crowd. But I didn’t feel as though I blended perfectly into the crowd. Even if no one else was aware of me, I was acutely aware of them.
I reached the table and sat down, smiling at the woman next to me, but she stared past me, ignoring me completely, and I resigned myself to eating alone and in silence.
“Beautiful music,” that bastard offspring of Muzak, was issuing from two small speakers on either side of the stage. It wasn’t a radio station but a tape and was far worse than even the stringed instrumental renditions of soft pop hits that we usually listened to each day. A uniformed maintenance worker climbed up on the stage and set up a folding table. On top of the table he placed a small cardboard box. He plugged a few wires into the back of one of the speakers, then strung the wires and the Mr. Microphone to which they were connected across the stage floor to the table. I watched him work as I ate, feigning interest, grateful to have something on which to focus my attention.
A few minutes later, a man I didn’t know but who seemed to be familiar to most of the other employees hopped up on stage to a round of applause. He waved at the crowd, picked up the Mr. Microphone, and began talking. “I know this is the part of our picnic you’ve all been waiting for. Especially you, Roy.” He pointed toward a balding overweight man at the table closest to him and everyone laughed.
“Yeah, Roy!” someone called out.
The man on stage held up his hand. “Come on, now. What we’re going to do this year is start with the smallest prizes first, then after that we’ll have the drawing for our grand prize—dinner at Orange County’s finest and most expensive restaurant, Elise!”
There were hoots and whistles and catcalls.
I ate my lunch as the man put his hand in the box on the table and drew out names for free car washes, free video rentals, free hamburgers. Then came the grand prize, the dinner at Elise.
I won.
I sat there, unmoving, as the man read my name, my brain not correctly processing the information. When he read my name again, this time with a questioning tone in his voice, as if trying to determine whether or not I was present, I stood. My heart was pounding, my lips dry as I walked onto the stage. I expected there to be silence—no one knew me, after all—but there was polite applause, the type of applause given only out of obligation and reserved for strangers. The earlier whistles and catcalls were gone. I looked over at my department’s table as I accepted the gift certificate and said “Thank you” into the proffered Mr. Microphone. The secretaries and programmers were clapping politely, but Stewart and Banks were not clapping at all. Stewart was scowling.
I hurried off the stage and immediately sat back down at my seat.
No one at my table even looked at me.
Later that afternoon, Stewart called me into his office. “I heard you were at the employee picnic and you won the grand prize.”
He heard? He was there.
I nodded, saying nothing.
“You seem to be spending an awful lot of time socializing on company time. I would think with your deadlines and all the work you have to do, you’d spend a little less time with your friends and a little more time on your assignments.”
I stared at him. “Attendance at the picnic was required. I wouldn’t’ve gone—”
“You do a lot of gabbing with your buddies during work hours, don’t you?”
“What buddies? I don’t know anyone here. I come, do my job, and go home.”
He smiled slightly, a hard, mirthless smile. “That’s your problem, Jones. Your attitude. If you put a little more effort into your work and started thinking of this as a career instead of just a job, you might get somewhere in life. It would behoove you, I think, to be a little more, of a team player.”
I did not even bother to respond. For the first time, I noticed how empty and bare
Stewart’s office looked. There was nothing to indicate its occupant’s personal tastes or interests. There were no framed photos on the desk, no knickknacks or plants in the room. The few papers tacked to the bulletin board on the wall were all memos or official company notices. The pile of magazines on the corner of the desk were all technical journals whose address labels were imprinted with the name and P.O. box of the corporation.
“Jones?” Stewart said. “Are you listening to me?”
I nodded.
“Why haven’t you been submitting your biweekly progress report?”
I stared at him. “You told me I didn’t have to turn in a report. You said that was only for the programmers.”
A trace of a smile touched his lips. “This requirement is clearly stated in your job description, which I suggest you take the time to read.”
“If I had known it was required, I would have done it. But you told me specifically that I didn’t have to turn in a progress report.”
“You do.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me that before? Why did you wait this long before letting me know?”
He glared at me. “As I’m sure you’re aware, your performance review is coming up in a few weeks. I’m afraid I have no choice but to make note of your poor work attitude and continual insubordination.”
Insubordination?
This isn’t the fucking army, I wanted to say. I’m not your slave, you fascist son of a bitch.
But I said nothing.
When he was through with his diatribe, I went back to my office.
Derek looked up when I returned. That in itself was unusual. But what was even stranger was that he actually spoke to me.
“Were you at the picnic?” he asked.
I was still ticked off at Stewart and was tempted to give Derek a taste of his own medicine, to not answer him, to ignore him and act as though he weren’t there. But I couldn’t do it. “Yeah,” I said, “I was there.”
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