A Handicap of the Devil?

Books Unbound
www.booksunbound.com

Copyright ©2003 by Allen Lyne

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and occurrences are either the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and not the goal of the author or Books Unbound.

Jonathan wore his ordinariness like a badge of courage.

He was one of those irritating people who crawl through life desperately trying to be self-effacing. The trouble with Jonathan was that by trying so hard to be insignificant, he made himself very significant indeed.

Most people go through life simply being ordinary. By trying to be
less
than ordinary, Jonathan stood out from the crowd. People noticed him everywhere. He was a tall, gangly person who gave way to other pedestrians. He always said “sorry” if he bumped into someone else, whether the fault was his or not. He was forever thanking people: shop assistants, bus and taxi drivers, his fellow travellers on the train, his landlady and the others living at Mrs. O'Reilly's boarding house. Everyone Jonathan came into contact with got profusely thanked for the smallest service or kindness—or imagined service or kindness. Jonathan drove people mad with his over-politeness.

And then there was his whistling.

Whenever Jonathan was in the least bit nervous or unsure about anything, he broke into an incredibly irritating, tuneless whistle. It drove people crazy on public transport, at home ... and at work. Here was this man trying desperately not to attract attention who frequently had people shouting at him:

"Stop that tuneless whistling."

He tried to stop, and that made things worse. He got nervous about trying to stop and tunelessly whistled all the more. At work, his fellow employees made up signs that read...

Stop that tuneless whistling

They all raised them the instant he began to whistle.

In his room at Mrs. O'Reilly's boarding house, he made his own sign....

Stop that tuneless whistling

...He raised it to himself whenever he caught himself at it.

As a child, Jonathan didn't cry when his father beat him. Instead, he whistled. That infuriated his violent father so much he hit him again. “You're the most stupid, insignificant, lazy, boring, lump of poop I've ever seen.” Jonathan would nod his agreement and whistle more loudly. His father's face would redden, and he'd belt him yet again.

His father's attitude didn't surprise him. Everybody bullied Jonathan. He had no friends.

His father called him a coward.

One day God looked down upon the world and saw that Jonathan was meek, and at least
He
thought it was good.

Jonathan worked in the city at the office of Jones P. and Son, Lawyers. He toiled there as a junior accountant thirty-eight and a half hours per week—for little more than the minimum wage.

Every day, at precisely 5:03pm, Jonathan finished work.... And every day he left the office building by the stairs, because as usual, the elevator was out of order. Jonathan had once worked out that he could have saved about a minute and a half if the elevator worked—even occasionally. This would have allowed him to catch a slightly earlier train. The lift worked so rarely that Jonathan couldn't remember the last time he had used it instead of the stairs. When he ran for it, he always missed the 5:19 by a whisker. So he was condemned to catch the 5:31.

Rain bucketed down from a grey and unforgiving sky as Jonathan moved as quickly as his 64-year-old legs would move him towards the railway station. Ten-tenths cloud cover, and as gloomy a day as he could remember. Jonathan was not happy. His newspaper was wet. He had been forced to put it over his head to keep off the rain. He thought bitterly of his domineering housekeeper's words that morning as she snatched the umbrella from his grasp. “You'll not be needin’ that, now. There's no rain forecast."
Why do I let her bully me like that? Why do I let everyone tell me what I should and shouldn't do?

A truck splashed water all over him as he ran in the vain hope that the 5:19 might leave a minute or two late. It was smack on time. He missed it and had to stand shivering and wet in the cold wind that whipped through the grey edifice of the railway station. He had neglected to take his overcoat to work, believing Mrs. O'Reilly that the day would be sunny and bright.

Jonathan thought back to the beginning of the day and remembered the feel of the winter sunshine on his back. The sky had scarcely a cloud in its vast blueness that morning. He was eating his usual breakfast of a slightly burnt vegemite toast sandwich as he trotted towards the railway station, late as usual

Vegemite. Why is it that Australians love it, and no one else can stand the stuff?
He remembered the two Americans who had stayed briefly at the boarding house. Both had gagged and run to the sink to wash their mouths out after one taste of the bitter, thick, black substance.

Apart from eating burnt toast and drinking lukewarm tea in the morning, other things had gone wrong on this particular day.

The elevator in the building Jonathan worked in was always stuck on the ground floor. You could press buttons for whatever floor you wished. The elevator would not move. It sat there, on the ground floor and simply vegetated. Many were the complaints from staff members. Jones P. senior simply grunted and shook his head. It was impossible to repair the elevator, according to him.

Long ago, when Jonathan was much younger, it had moved. After it stopped working, Jonathan and some of his fellow workers had developed a ritual. On arrival, they would resolutely press the button for the elevator. The door would hiss open. Once inside, they pressed the button for the top floor. Nothing happened. They pressed and pressed and eventually gave up and climbed the stairs to the office.

This was very hard on the receptionist, Miss Bloomingdale. She had what is sometimes referred to as ‘a weight problem'. Some people in the office reckoned that Miss Bloomingdale might well have a heart attack brought on by the stress of the climb Miss Bloomingdale complained bitterly every morning about the climb up the stairs.

On this particular day, when Jonathon punched the elevator button on the ground floor, nothing happened. It seems that Miss Bloomingdale had actually coaxed the elevator into moving, and she was complaining loudly and bitterly. It was stuck between floors two and three. She was screeching shrilly for someone to get her out. As far as Jonathan was concerned, Miss Bloomingdale could remain trapped in the elevator until she expired or he retired, whichever came first.

Miss Bloomingdale did not smell nice ... but that was only her chief fault amongst many. She was the receptionist, and Jonathan sat nearest to her reception desk. Miss Bloomingdale's shrill and screechy telephone calls jarred Jonathan's nerves—almost to the point of breaking. She also ate fruit.

Her dietician had told Miss Bloomingdale that eating nothing but fruit until noon was the way to a lean and trim figure. So Miss Bloomingdale ate fruit. She ate it relentlessly all through the morning's work. She shovelled it in by the bucket load—apples, oranges, pears, bananas, peaches, plums, and nectarines in season. Strange and exotic fruits, which Jonathan failed to identify, also disappeared into that ugly maw, to be chewed, slurped and noisily swallowed. This drove Jonathan—normally the quietest, meekest and mildest man alive—to the point where he had visions and fantasies. He dreamed of tying Miss Bloomingdale to her desk, setting fire to the building, and leaving for the day.

Jonathan's fantasies were all consuming. Much bubbled away below the surface of this shy man. Dark thoughts of assassinating Miss Bloomingdale intruded upon Jonathan's consciousness each morning as he attempted to concentrate on the figures he had to prepare for Jones P. junior. Junior was the 23-year-old senior accountant who had finished accountancy school some two and a half years before. He spent the next eighteen months touring the world on an extended holiday granted by his doting father, the formidable Jones P. senior.

Senior was bitterly disappointed that his son and heir had failed to achieve high enough marks to qualify for law school and became an accountant instead. He knew the reason. His son had been a hell raiser all through his student days. Junior's marks never reached the level required for law school because he was too busy imbibing alcoholic fluids, getting off his face on various recreational drugs and chasing members of the opposite sex. So, instead of making him a partner, senior was forced to employ junior as the senior accountant, supervising the five middle-aged and elderly accountants who had worked for the firm for varying lengths of time—anywhere from twenty-five to forty-three years.

When Jonathan had arrived at his office, Johnson and Eastman were already at their desks. He slammed the door shut to try to drown out Miss Bloomingdale's mournful cries to be released from her elevator tomb. Her shrill cries and the insistent sound of the elevator alarm still penetrated the closed door. Jonathan looked at his fellow clerks, and they shrugged. As he sat at his desk and switched on his computer terminal, the phone began to ring. Jonathan looked up at his fellow clerks, whose eyes briefly strayed from their own terminals and met his. Everyone looked back to their screen. The phone continued to ring in chorus with the fat lady's aria for help.

"What the bloody hell is going on?” Jones P. senior's red face appeared redder than usual as he burst through the door, closely followed by his smirking son and heir, Jones P. junior. He moved swiftly to the desk and picked up the phone ... just as it stopped ringing. “Blast.” He hurled the phone back into its cradle and quickly looked at the three accountants. “Will one of you morons kindly explain to me why I come into the office to find phones ringing and Bloomingdale screaming her fat tits off in the elevator?” The three accountants looked back at their boss. “Well, come on.” Still no one spoke. “You ... Goodfellow. You're the senior man here. Why didn't you sort it out?"

"Well, Mister Jones P. senior, sir, I was here last, and I assumed that one of the others had...."

"You assumed?” Jones P. senior's face became so red his cowed staff expected the top of his head to burst at any second—just to relieve the pressure. “You assumed, but you didn't check. That's the trouble.... “The phone once again began to ring. Jones P. senior picked it up. “Yes...? No, I don't want a time-share apartment, now sod off.” He slammed down the phone and glared at Jonathan. “That's the trouble with you, Goodfellow. No bloody initiative. That's why, after forty-three years, you're still a junior accountant with this firm. You're such a bloody loser.... Get on the phone, call the elevator company and tell them to send someone to get that fat bitch out of the lift."

Jones P. senior stormed from the room into his inner sanctum, shouting for his secretary to make the damn coffee and to hurry up about it. Junior winked and grinned at the three accountants as he followed his father.

They did not wink or grin back.

The elevator man came and did what elevator men are supposed to do. He got the lift working, and it duly arrived—after several stops and starts—at the top floor. The repairman made the error of standing nearby, waiting for the lift to arrive. The door opened, and he fainted backwards into the arms of Eastman as Miss Bloomingdale and her farts were released. They brought him around by gently slapping his face, and he left via the stairs, still looking extremely pale.

Miss Bloomingdale was highly offended that it had taken them so long to release her. She staggered to her desk under the weight of eighteen kilograms of fruit and sat, mournfully tucking into half a dozen pears. The accountants went back to their screens. They tried to pretend that the fat receptionist was not sitting at her desk—eating fruit and farting—as she had done on every day of every week they'd worked in that smelly office.

Miss Bloomingdale had another habit that drove Jonathan to desperation. She sneezed a lot. And every time she sneezed, she copiously broke wind. Foully, noisily. Her farts were audible even over the top of her most violent sneeze—and many were violent indeed.

Even worse, she suffered from chronic hay fever and influenza. Indeed, her constant colds and influenza were so violent that they would have been fatal to any other member of the human race. It followed that Miss Bloomingdale's sneezes and farts were frequent.