By the Grit of the Page

It was because he felt too much control; he felt like he had caused it to happen. A horrible thing to two not-really-so-horrible people, and he had caused it, right? He had, right? Whatever it was, he felt a connection to the horror. Embarrassing, scarring, sexually-transmitted horror.

It all started one day at work.

He walked like a breath on the wind, Gerald. Moving through the manufactured hallways of the warehouse, he felt like a mouse being lured. But where? Of course, he was going to his cubicle, his job, his work, whatever that means­­—but just where was he being lead? This was the question that had always dogged him. He felt this way for as long as he could remember, even as a kid. But today it was particularly sharp. It was an audience that he sensed everywhere he went, to varying degrees. Many people, maybe everyone, can relate to the feeling of being watched sometimes. The shower; while cooking; sometimes while doing something that they’re proud of, like changing a flat tire with speed and grace. But it was different for Gerald. He didn’t feel watched exactly, he just felt like he had an audience, which was hard for him to explain or even understand.

He couldn’t stop picturing the narration in his head today, as he bobbed through the warehouse: Gerald turned left, then right to avoid talking to Fred, then left again, and finally he turned into the entrance of his little office. The small details being voiced: Gerald felt proud of himself today, he had done so much yesterday at work that he could allow himself a touch of rest. So he stared at the picture beside his computer—

“Knock knock.”

Gerald snapped out of it, trying to roll beneath his morning fog. He swiveled his chair around and there she was, standing outside his cubicle. Kelly. The carrot on a string that dangled over a cliff—or at least a really steep hill. The midnight waltzist, the phantom of Gerald’s opera.

“Hi, good morning, Kelly,” Gerald managed.

“Hey Gerald, so you know how Don the accountant broke his leg snowboarding last week? Well, we’re putting together a little party to raise money for his hospital bill. It’ll be a raffle with drinks and all that sort of stuff just to help out, since his wife is pregnant and isn’t working right now either.” She extended her hand with a small piece of paper and Gerald couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being baited. But it felt nice touching something that had once been held by a mythical figure. He looked at it. It was a flyer for the event she’d just described.

“I drew up a little poster for it so people can remember,” she said, suddenly bashful.

“Okay, yeah. This is a great thing to do for Don. I’ll be . . .” He glanced at the date on the flyer. It was this weekend. Saturday. “Saturday? Yeah, I’ll be there. Where the hell is the—oh the grange hall, right. Yeah, I’ll be there . . . I thought it said Garage Hall.”

“Thanks,” she said, and like a scent on the wind, she was gone. Gerald, in his still-waking state, wondered briefly if she’d ever been there.

Then he looked down at the flyer that she had made herself, now in his hand, and he felt like royalty.

He turned back to his computer, gazing at the picture beside it. It was a photo he had taken the first time he went to San Francisco. The city had floored him and seeing the picture there that he had snapped at the top of one of the hills, always made him remember his passion. Photography—it had been a part of his life as long as he could remember, even back when cameras were something you had to first desire, then seek out. He hadn’t been to the community darkroom in a couple months and sitting here—Gerald suddenly had a thought—something occurred to him. The perfect in. His first nibble of that carrot which had dangled fresh from his grasp since he started working here. But he didn’t want to seem too forward, so he’d let the idea percolate until lunch.

He looked at the photo periodically that morning like he was winking at a friend. That city. The street sign that he had been careful to get in the frame because he liked the sound of it: Divisadero. It felt like the name of the command board for a spaceship. Divisadero, permission to begin Operation Kelly Carrot Dangle. The minutes and finally the hours ticked by like a 3D movie that slowly gains angles. Then the clock read lunchtime. Permission granted.

He walked through the halls, trying to tempt a description of casual, but he couldn’t ignore the audible pounding of his heart. He felt like if he’d looked down, he would have seen his chest pulsing to the rhythm. He went to C4, but she was gone already. He turned and made way for the break room. He pictured his audience watching, nervous as he was, taking note of every detail along the hall: the mysterious crack outside of Jordan’s cubicle, the telephone that sat on the wall beside the doorway like a museum relic, the current of familiar faces drifting through the outside. Gerald leapt into said current feeling like Frogger and ran it on down to the break room where he saw her, head dipped in a conspirator’s angle at the man beside her at the table. It was Ben, the fucking Brad Pitt of the warehouse. He’d been here the longest and held himself like he was a part of the fabric of their workweek. Gerald had heard the way that the women talked about Ben and it was not only clear that he was lifted to a pedestal sly and out of reach, but paradoxically his hands had touched the heart, souls and nether regions of any and all of the most desirable women of this place. Ben sickened Gerald, but at the same time Gerald longed to be acknowledged by him.

He stepped up to their table and their conversation felt like a tape deck being abruptly clicked off. “Hey Kelly,” Gerald said.

“Oh, hi Gerald,” she said, waiting for him to continue. Gerald nodded at Ben who nodded back.

“So I wanted to say, I do photography, and I’d be happy to take some pictures at Don’s fundraiser this weekend. If you want some for the Internet or whatever.”

Gerald’s heart lifted with her eyebrows. “Oh wow, that would be great, Gerald. Thank you for offering. Of course, we wouldn’t be able to—”

“Oh no no no. I would do it for free. I love taking pictures. It’s my passion or whatever.”

“Well, that would be wonderful. Thank you, Gerald.”

Seeing her smile made him feel like an artist, knowing he’d helped create something so beautiful.

He felt it again, the audience, but now it felt different. It wasn’t a conglomeration of people, sitting in a dark theater or their own living room. He felt the audience of one person, a man who was writing Gerald’s story. Probably a man who knew loneliness and guilt, based on Gerald’s life in general. It wasn’t a writer, or at least not a professional one. Gerald felt that his life was like a seed, an idea trying to germinate. He imagined some baldheaded scribe, sitting alone at his typewriter, pounding away at it, annoying his neighbors or roommates, a cigarette dangling from his jaw, some stereotypical jazz on a record player to his left. Just callousing his fingers at that typer, regaling hymns of Gerald and trying again and again to write something interesting, and failing. Gerald knew better than anyone because it had been all the stupid boring crap that happened in his life.

Gerald couldn’t help it, sensing this audience that had become human, the way some find themselves unable to grasp life without a creator, be it God or whoever else is convenient for them. This feeling had always caused a strange shade of anxiety for him because he felt he was always waiting for this story to get interesting, possibly tragic, and now he hoped the bald-headed loser (thanks a lot, Gerald) wasn’t about to throw him to the wolves. Either way, as he walked away from Kelly that day, he thanked this man internally. He thought, This may be a pretty boring story, but thank you for writing it this way. He snuffed out the concept of a mirage, or a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Well now, here we go.

Saturday arrived and he almost felt like he had to work overtime, not only going to hang out with his co-workers during the weekend, but being the hired photographer. It was worth it though, as Operation Kelly Carrot Dangle was bigger than all of this. He walked into the grange hall with his camera hanging around his neck like a VIP badge. People who he marginally knew from the warehouse would look at him, exchange a nod, then their eyes would move to the camera and Gerald liked to think he noticed some questioning admiration in their eye. And he’d just saunter off, allowing the mystery to steep.

The first person to actually talk to him was, to Gerald’s distain, Ben, the goddamn heartthrob. Ben walked up with his usual demeanor, steeped in confidence.

“Hey Gerald,” he said.

“Hi Ben. How are—here, let me get a photo of you.”

“Oh okay, sure.” Ben offered a well-practiced grin for the camera, then leaned in close. “That’s actually why I wanted to talk to you. It’s kind of embarrassing but I was running around naked in the woods today and I think I may have laid down over some weird shit. It’s probs just a grass-rash but I hope it isn’t poison oak—anyway, I was wondering if you could, while you’re taking your little pictures, try not get me while I’m digging away at my ass. That’s where I got it the worst.”

Gerald suppressed a smirk and told Ben that he would be wary. Ben nodded his thanks and made off for the bar. Gerald found himself uplifted at the thought of Ben having poison oak all over his ass until he realized he probably got it while romping around with some beautiful woman. He shrugged it off and continued wading through this creek of acquaintances.

The demeanor in the hall was that of a group of people who weren’t quite sure how to act: there were drinks and music, but everyone was also surrounded by co-workers. Gerald noticed some were wearing clothes that they would never be seen in at work, which made them look like they were in disguise. As the libations flowed, Gerald felt like he would see his co-workers more and more stripped of their working-week persona. As the photographer, he wouldn’t be drinking as freely as the rest, and he looked forward to being a sort of Cheshire cat, capturing the side of his co-workers that stayed at home from 9 to 5.

He looked over and saw Kelly by the coat check. “Hi,” he said as he approached her.

She turned. “Oh hi, Gerald. Wow, look at that camera. Is that an actual film camera?”

“No, it just looks like one. It’s digital.”

“Very cool. Thanks again for taking photos. But be sure to have fun too. The bar’s over there; cut loose. Don’s by the stage in his wheelchair. Be sure to sign his cast.”

And she turned away to resume her conversation with a lady who Gerald knew as Jill. As he started walking toward the bar, he suddenly felt like he was in one of those role-playing murder mystery houses where they were pretending to still be in college.

The night wore on and despite the booze, a cloud of boredom hovered just out of sight. The DJ was one of Kelly’s roommates and Gerald felt like the guy had done little more than put on a 90s Alternative Rock mix tape. Still, he wandered around and snapped his photos, almost everyone demanding to approve it before setting him loose.

He decided to grab his third cocktail and while he waited for it, he remembered that he hadn’t signed Don’s cast yet. He looked over to see if the handicap was still being mobbed and noticed something just to his left. Kelly and Ben, walking with drunken secrecy through the back and into a dark hall that bordered the grange and a parking plateau.

His heart sank deeper than he knew was possible.

Gerald could almost see it happening right here in front of him: Kelly standing, gasping for air as the identity drained first from her face, then her neck, her shoulders, her bare breasts, her flowing waistline and beyond, into and out of every pore and crevice; her thighs, her knees, the pulsing calves, and finally right on through her toes. All of her gone and re-written as another story, one of Ben’s several conquests. She would now be one of the girls who had achieved passage to where the entire female workforce secretly desired to reside, and it felt like Gerald had had something taken from him when he wasn’t paying attention. He heard himself thinking, Why her? Anyone but her.

He felt now more than ever his story turning and could hear the typewriter hammering away, soundtracking the rhythm of his steps as he moved past the dancers, watching the door. He moved to the other side of the room and stood for some time, his soul agape at how long they lingered. Finally he made way to that back door. His chest heaved and it felt like he was walking through mud. He set his drink down on the nearest table and assumed his role, standing in front of the door behind which they’d vanished. He raised his camera like a rifle at his co-workers while they danced and drank and pretended to be enjoying themselves. Gerald became lost, time draining as he imagined himself going through that door and being confronted with his worst nightmare—something that disturbed him while lightly blowing on a spark below his waist. To see her like that. Positioned. It felt like a delicious and poisonous bloodletting.

Then the door opened behind him and they emerged. Gerald pretended not to notice. He acted like he was fussing with the settings on his camera. They went by him without a word and he could see it in the pigment of their skin, the tiny matting at the back of her hair, the wispy aroma that trailed them. Ben picked at his ass. It was all excited passion and regret and desire and filth. Gerald felt sick to his stomach, and he left before he said or did something that he would regret. (He had enough photos anyway.)

That night he sat in his apartment staring at a sheet of paper in front of him. He imagined that man, sitting there and writing what Gerald’s life would become. He knew it was crazy, but he couldn’t help imagining it, and figured so long as he told no one, the insanity would remain grounded inside his own weird and stupid head. He wanted to write a letter to him, whoever was writing this story. He bent over with his pen.

Dear Friend,

            I don’t know you. I feel strange writing to you this way. Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’m too in-tuned for my own good. I suppose there’s a fine line there, you know? Either way, I figured it couldn’t hurt. I can’t help but feel that you’re sitting somewhere, writing me writing this. I can almost see you. A struggling old man, always dreaming of finding the story that will finally fall on the right ears. Anyway, I feel that you, being the man that you are based on how you’ve written my life so far, have a level of understanding for human emotion. I know you can write my story however you want, that’s why people write I guess, right? And you’ve written it how you have for your own reasons, but I’m just asking for one small favor. One small footnote epilogue. Can you please make Kelly and Ben pay for what they made me feel? It’s selfish I know, but I’ve never considered myself an even-keeled man. I just feel like I’ve been turned inside out, and all I want is for some sort of retribution. You don’t have to kill them or anything. I just want them to feel a pain comparable to mine. I guess you did already give Ben poison oak, huh? Was that for me? But if you can find it in yourself to go maybe just one nudge further, I’d be greatly appreciative. Or not. It’s your story, I’ll let you decide. Good luck finding a publisher. Thanks for your time.




He went to bed that night having left his letter on the nightstand where he was sure it would be easily noticed. He felt the breath of when he was a child, suspense at the feeling of closeness while leaving cookies out for a fat bearded gift-giver.

All the next day he couldn’t shake the image of the two of them slipping through those doors. He saw the most gut-wrenching stills that came at him like fists to the sternum.

Before he knew it, the weekend was over and he was going through the motions of getting ready for work like a puppet controlled by automation. He wore a plaid shirt and corduroys instead of his usual plain shirt and slacks, not knowing why, just moving to the whims of his robot puppeteer. Or his writer?

He walked through the halls of work and immediately noticed an air of disquiet. Everyone looked like they were thinking of something else. He went to his cubicle and started his day. Before long he heard someone approach his doorway. He turned to see a lady named Elizabeth who may as well have been born without a face.

“Knock knock,” she said, holding up a card. “I’m sending this around for people to sign. It’s a get-well-soon card for Kelly.”

His stomach dropped. “What happened?” Holy shit, I put a hit on her, he thought.

“Oh, she’s fine,” Elizabeth hurried, obviously seeing his expression. “She just got a bad case of poison oak. She should be here in a couple weeks though.”

“A couple weeks? Wow, it must be bad—” His breath stopped as he thought of Ben’s ailments on Saturday.

He signed the card and went back to his work, an ugly and strange feeling creeping to his heart. Regardless, he had started to compose an inner thank you to whoever he’d written the letter to last night when someone else tapped on his door.

“Hey, Ger,” the man—a coworker of his named Steve—said. “Did you hear about this shit?”

“What? About Kelly getting poison oak? Yeah. Sucks.”

“No—I mean, yeah, but that’s not the whole story. Word around the campfire is she has it all over her face, mainly her mouth.”

“Ugh, that’s horrible.”

“But check it out, that guy Ben over in sales? He told Sarah that—wait, let me back up. Sarah saw him really digging around in his ass. So she made some joke about it, asking why he had such an itchy ass—”

“Yeah, Ben told me about his poison oak . . . wait. No!”

“Yeah. He told her he got poison oak up his asshole right before the party on Saturday, and a bunch of people saw those two run off out the back of the place that night. To go bone or whatever. How about that?”

Gerald felt like he could hear a sitcom’s live audience applauding. “She ate his ass?”

“I mean, that seems to be pretty likely. And even if not, let’s just say that, in case you didn’t notice, the whole warehouse is going insane with stories.”

“That’s . . . well, wow,” Gerald said, more to himself than anything. “Why would he let her do that when he knew . . . ? I never would have expected this.”

“Oh, you mean you didn’t expect one of your co-workers getting poison oak on her face from tossing another co-worker’s salad? Gee, Gerald, go fig.”

They talked about it briefly before Steve went off into the haze of murmurs. Gerald felt ugly and sinister. He suddenly wondered if he was playing with some black art witchcraft type shit. He wanted to remain on the good side of whatever it was that had done this to Kelly and Ben. He took a pen and stared at an empty piece of paper for a bit. He couldn’t tell if he should just consider it a coincidence, or if he somehow held a knowledge of himself that went beyond understanding. It all felt ugly, but never wanting to be considered unappreciative, he wrote Thank You on the blank piece of paper and got back to his work.

You’re welcome, friend.