CLANK: A Book of Madness (Psychological Satire Novel) Unsettled Office Worker Loses the Last Screw (3 page)

4

I can’t stand these
bloviating, gasconading, degenerates! How smug and vainglorious they are. The
pretentious fools! What have they done that is so special! I just want to get
into my car, follow them home one dark night and run the fools over… twice!

Excuse me… I just came from an
incident
this morning on my way to work. I’m a bit irate, miffed. One of
those bums who wash your windows at the streetlights accosted me. It started
out pleasantly enough. I never look for trouble. But today I didn’t have any
spare change and on top of this, my windows weren’t in need of a washing. They
were spotless. Here’s what happened. I’ll retell the situation from the first
person, present time narrative.

As I’m driving down the
street, the light changes to red and so naturally I stop. When all of a sudden
this squalid hellion rushes into the street, holding some equally filthy rag
and spray bottle filled with a yellowish liquid. His own urine for all I know.
He squirts a few drops of the piss onto the rag and reaches across my
windshield to wipe it down. I motion him to stop. But you know those people.
Brainless. He doesn’t understand the universal sign language for STOP! NO MORE!
so I figured English is ruled out as well.

I lay on the horn to get his
attention. And the blaring noise startles him like some kind of backwoods
hillbilly who’s never seen a car in his life. I wonder if this preschool dropout
has ever heard a horn before judging by his reaction. He scowls at me. I pound
on the horn again, waving my hand
NO
. The miscreant becomes irate! He
slams his fist down onto the hood of my car, making a small dent. Jesus Christ.
I don’t drive the nicest car but I prefer it to be dent free. Not only that,
but everyone feels like a big man in their car. For some reason those thin
windows and curved pieces of metal embolden every human. A normally timid man
might become a real rabble-rouser once he’s inside a vehicle.

A few months ago my window
washing sprayers somehow got angled toward the front of my car. Probably by
some riffraff causing mischief. Now they practically shoot upwards at a 45
degree angle toward the front of my vehicle. I twist the stick -- soap comes
flying out the sprayers. The liquid makes a perfect arc, striking this idiotic
bum squarely in the face. He shuts his eyes as the soap enters them and begins
pawing at his face with those god-awful dirty hands. This is probably the
closest thing he’s had to a bath in decades. But the flea-bitten imbecile still
refuses to move. He stands there moaning and writhing in agony.

The light turns green and this
insignificant hobo remains in the intersection, screaming his head off, rubbing
his eyes with that filthy piss cloth. I can only imagine the grime and muck
being smeared into his peepers. Now bear in mind, I’ve never been late to work.
I most assuredly didn’t plan on being tardy today due to an ignorant
guttersnipe. So I inched the car forward and bumped him with the nose. It
catches his leg, causing him to double over slightly. Not enough however. He’s
rubbing and shouting and rubbing and shouting. The clock is ticking away. I’m
growing agitated. I CANNOT BE LATE!

I press down on the
accelerator once again. This time with a bit more pressure, perhaps a little
too much, because the car jolts forward and the derelict is flung onto my hood
with a thud. Now he’s got one hand rubbing his eyes and the other grabbing at
his lower back, which was ridiculous, because I only hit him going ten miles
per hour tops. He lies on the hood for a few seconds as I wait for him to roll
off and slink back over to his cardboard home. That doesn’t happen.

Instead I begin driving with
the bum still splayed out on the hood. But I couldn’t allow this to continue
much longer. I did what anyone in my situation would do. I drove on and looked
in my side view mirror to check for any cars on my right. All clear. My foot
presses down on the pedal, propelling the car along with ever increasing speed.
There’s a pile of black garbage bags not far off. It looks soft enough. The
moans and groans are still reaching my ears. Terribly irritating. Time for this
ol’ boy to go, I think. And with that thought, I torque the car hard to the right
just before reaching the bags and slam on the brakes full force. The hobo on my
hood goes sailing into the air... Unfortunately he overshot the bags, instead
landing on the pavement sidewalk. He then slid a few feet before smacking into
the brick building. Dozens of people, if not more, witness this -- but no one
cares. Everyone is an observer and not a participator.

Except for one rat faced goon.
A college aged punk. He approaches me on the left. His car slows down as the
slightly tinted window descends. I expect another confrontation to ensue; but
to my surprise, there isn’t one taking place. The punk shouts to me, “Awesome
dude!” then cuts my car off, pulls over to the curb and tosses a slurpy at the
bum. It catches the stunned hobo in the jaw. Which I can only imagine relieved
some of the stinging pain from the wiper fluid.

5

There it is again! That
infernal clanking breaking the silence!
CLANK! CLINK! CLANK!
My boss is
in his office, the door slightly ajar, banging the spoon against the bowl.
Three empty protein shakes lay scattered about on the floor beside his feet. A
haze creeps into the room. A dull vibration follows. My vision begins to blur.
It’s how I imagine Superman feels when kryptonite is thrust upon him. My hands
instinctively cover my ears as I rock back and forth in my chair like an
infantile retard. But the strident noise manages to penetrate through my thin
hands.

The clanking continues,
growing louder and louder. I’ve lost all sense of time. Just the rhythmic
rocking of my helpless body. Some one taps me on the shoulder. I open my
tearing eyes to look up. It’s Mr. Cromwell… At this point I realize the
clanking has stopped, yet the torment persists aching in my ears. I imagine
wiping away the imaginary blood, leisurely trickling out from the hearing
cavities.

Wilmer Cromwell has the large
glass bowl in his hand; some remnants of his lunch remain at the bottom. The
spoon still lingers inside like a bellicose rival. He asks if I’m alright.
“Sure, just a headache,” I say, fighting off the urge to snatch the bowl from
those manicured fingers and smash it into a million pieces upon the marble
flooring. Wilmer flashes his arrogant grin and departs to his office. My mind
is still jarred; nothing seems real at the moment. Everything is foreign. But
then I look up and see Ellington Fairfield, the black lawyer from down the
hall, standing in my doorway. He’s got one finger raised, calling me over like
a lost puppy. I look back over my shoulder once to make sure Wilmer is gone,
shortly thereafter my feet and I are walking on over to Ellington.

“I’ve got to talk to you,” he
says quietly. “Come here, quick!”

“Sure,” I say apathetically.

We move down the hall a little
ways. He leads me into his office. I enter first. Fairfield follows and shuts
the door behind himself.

“Jardine,” he says, getting my
name wrong, “this is about Wilmer…”

“Oh? What about?”

“I saw you two talking in
there… Wilmer went into his office as soon as I walked by your window.”

Ellington pauses and stares at
me like I’m missing something of grave importance.

“Yeah…?” I ask shrugging my
shoulders.

“Well… Was he talking about
me? Negatively, I mean.”

“What?”

“Was he making
comments
about me?”

“Huh? Comments? Like what?”

Ellington sighs. He places a
large warm hand on my shoulder.

“I mean…
racist
comments.”

Oh boy, not this again. It
seems Ellington is convinced everyone in the office is a closet racist. He’s
the only black man in the building, you see. And for some reason he thinks I’m
the only person who isn’t racist. Which is true. I mean, I’m not racist but I
don’t believe anyone else in the building is either. Except for maybe Storton.
I once saw him spit (a big massive ball of slobber) right into Ellington’s
water jug before putting it on the cooler.

“No, Mr. Fairfield. Mr.
Cromwell wasn’t referring to you at all. In fact he hasn’t mentioned your name
in a number of weeks.”

“So he’s too good for me, huh?
Is that it? Too good for the black man?”

I sit there dumbfounded. What
can you say to that? But, just to have a little fun I angle my head down in
defeat, playing along, acting as if I’ve been caught. “Yes… I think that’s the
reason. He mentioned something about it awhile back.”

“Jesus Christ!” Ellington
says, throwing those big hands up over his head. “I knew it! That racist
scumbag!”

I sit there, my head shaking
in disbelief. He probably thinks I’m disgusted by my “racist” boss, but really
I’m flabbergasted by the nitwit before me. Ellington shields his face with one
hand and motions for me to leave with the other. I get up to do as he asks, and
actually, leave the room feeling rather satisfied. The instigator of yet
another interoffice feud.

“See? It weren’t heavy like
you said it was gonna be, Ms!”

Todd Storton is coming up the
stairs on my left. He’s carrying the always ever-present four water jugs. A
good-looking office girl is walking in front of him. She turns back slightly,
smiling politely. I can tell it’s a fake grin – she confirms this by turning
away and rolling her eyes, instinctively I’d wager. Professional office
courtesy. Feigned interest. Storton’s face looks like he’s just scored the
winning touchdown in the championship game.

The girl walks right on by me
without so much as a courtesy smile. I look over to Storton and find him
staring at the woman’s butt. His eyes dart from cheek to cheek.

“Well done, Storton, you’re a
real
ignoramus
,” I say mockingly (using today’s word of the day). The
dimwit doesn’t register my sarcasm.

“Thanks, Josh,” he replies.

At least it’s a J.

6

My boss’ associate is named
Percy Sullivan. Together they form “Cromwell and Sullivan Attorneys at Law.”
Put simply, Percy is a complete twit. If Wilmer is the pretentious suave
partner, then Percy is the corrupt, gluttonous swindler. He’s a portly fellow
with bad breath and thinning hair. Every one of his features is short and squat
just like his general appearance. The first impression you get of Mr. Sullivan
is one of abhorrence. You look at him and automatically think “there’s goes a
pudgy snake, a real slimeball.”

He looks more like a used car
salesman than a lawyer. His style of dress is passé and antediluvian,
consisting of extremely high-waisted pants and shabby, dull colored suits. Most
of which appear to be moth bitten. Occasionally the sleazebag will wear a loud
tie which offsets the insipid clothes to a comical degree. It would seem he
specializes in conning elderly women. They’re absolutely smitten by his charm.
I find it revolting. He dotes on them like a cavalier courter -- or should I
say courtier? Opening doors, retrieving items, walking their little purse dogs.
The ignorant women smile fondly. They’re all too happy drinking in and
garnering the attention of a younger man, even if he is only after their
wallets.

I don’t concern myself enough
with these matters. But just once I’d like to scream at those old bags “He’s
swindling you! Run away!” Who cares. Either way I get my pay check at the end
of the month. Percy Sullivan can go right on bamboozling and hoodwinking the
decrepit, widowed seniors of the world.

However, there is one thing I
cannot stand about Percy… his laugh. I’m positive it’s feigned, not to mention
absurdly overdone. Each time he hoots it sounds like he’s being punched in the
gut, having the wind knocked out of him. Great big belly laughs. Long
Ooooooh!
Huh-hah! Oooooooh!’s.
How one would go about refining such a chortle is
beyond me. Or why they would ever want to… Other times he makes a wheezing
noise while chuckling. I find it equally disgusting.

“Good evening, Jared,” Mr.
Sullivan says to me as he walks out the door. I fake a smile and find myself
staring at the doorway long after he’s left. It’s inexplicable, but for some
reason I keep staring and staring. Wilmer Cromwell has already gone home. Now
it’s just me in the office. I sit there thinking, “Is this what my life has
truly become?” I’m a two-bit, easily replaceable lawyer’s assistant for
Christ’s sake! Then I shake my head in despair as I prepare to leave the
building. But first, there’s one of my many lofty duties to perform… I enter
Wilmer’s room to collect the empty muscle shakes. He’s far too lazy to do this
himself.
Why not leave it to the peon!
Enter me.

And this is where I see it…
Wilmer’s computer. No one, as far as I know, has ever seen its contents. The
machine is an enigma. For as many times as I’ve heard him tapping away on the
keyboard, every instance where I have walked into his office, Wilmer
immediately minimizes or exits whatever his onscreen activities were. He’ll sit
there with a big goofy grin. Upon seeing me, he will say something to the
effect of “Great work today! Keep it up!” He doesn’t have a clue… The computers
tempts me to turn it on, just take a quick peek at the internet history. But
alas, my spineless demeanor (or good natured, you might say) doesn’t allow it.

On my way out, I cross paths
with Natasha. She’s looking just as radiant as ever. Yet, I can tell she’s
still a bit disgusted by me. All due to that Storton and his fat, mendacious
mouth. Her hand is holding a key to lock her office door. I’m doing the same
with mine. It’s at this juncture that I wish for us to speak. Some little fun
conversation of sorts… but I lack the moxie. I want to explain that what
Storton said was an outright lie. That he is a perverted deviant with no social
tact or manners of any kind. Instead, she walks by with her nose sticking up in
the air. I even lack the courage to catch a furtive glance of her stunning
physique as she disappears. My head hangs in shame, leaving me to count the
scuff marks on the floor left by our indolent janitor. We’re all just cogs in a
machine. Some more dispensable than others. Me? I’m the kind of cog that if
removed, would cause the machine to function even smoother.

I think about going home, yet
can’t bring myself to budge. Some strange sensation grips my entire being. Dull
clanks
ring inside my head – the earlier noise resurfacing in my
thoughts… My legs give way. I find myself slinking down to the floor, propped
against the wall. Sobbing like a small child.

I’m not sure what happened
after my collapse, but the next thing I know I’m being prodded by a shoe.
Ellington’s meaty foot tapping against my ribcage.

“Hey Jonathan, you alright?”

“What? Who?” I ask (a heavy
grogginess still enveloping my thoughts), before realizing he obviously means
me. I’m always a bit dazed and disoriented after waking up. Evidently I fell
asleep right there in the hallway, all through the night, now it’s the next
morning.

“Sure, I must have fainted.”

“As long as you’re alright,”
he says before leaning down and whispering into my ear. “Keep an eye on Cromwell
for me, will ya? I think I saw him at a gun shop yesterday.” He tilts his head
sideways, looking at me with a bulging, fearful eye.

“Sure,” I say.

Minutes later I’m seated at my
desk ready to take on the day. Or something like that.

A man discovers his wife is
having a torrid love affair. He does what any sensible person would do: begins
plotting her death. A real intricate, cerebral machination. No stone was left
unturned. He spends exactly one month planning out every detail, leaving
nothing to chance. And I mean
nothing
.

Here’s what he did. Whenever
the wife told him, “I’m going to the tennis club,” he knew that meant she’d be
meeting with her paramour. And as of late she’d been playing
a lot
of
tennis. Lord knows how her stroking was coming along. This man here was a
well-known, well liked, prodigious banker. A real hard worker and upstanding
citizen. Perhaps a little too hard of a worker, which might be why his wife
cuckolded him.

By the end of the month his
wife was playing
tennis
every day of the week, without fail. He mentions
to her she must be pretty devoted to the sport. The conniving wench laughs,
stating that indeed she is. She
loves
it. So much so in fact that she’s
on her way going to club right then. The man smiles, but just before she
leaves, he asks if he can come watch her play. The woman stalls, prevaricates,
and in the end convinces him that it would be too dreadfully boring. He
concurred with that, alright. It was just the response he wanted.

The next piece of the puzzle
fell into place. He asks their elderly maid to clean the living room while he
rehearses an important business presentation in the next room – no
interruptions. This is done so that the maid believes him to be in the adjacent
office with the door shut. Previously he had recorded himself speaking into a
tape recorder. The presentation was a heated plea for bank management reforms.
One which he would deliver the following week. And quite cleverly, he had
recorded messages of him barking commands to the maid every once in a while.
Saying things such as “Later on you’ll have to help me clean out the attic,”
“You must be sure to have the room spotless, I’m expecting company soon.” The
maid would reply and the recorded voice would cut her off abruptly, “Sorry, I’m
awfully busy. I’ll discuss it with you later,” then go right back to the
presentation.

The man surreptitiously
sneaked out the backdoor wearing a disguise. He carried a silenced .45 pistol
with him as he hailed a taxicab. The taxi reached the desired location within
ten minutes. Tennis club showdown. The man pays his toll and exits, electing to
walk the few remaining blocks to the hotel room where his wife was busy playing
an
intense
game
.
He dials a number on his cell phone and, posing
as a school staff member, alerts the person on the other end of the line that
their son has been involved in an accident. He’s at St. Morgan’s hospital.

Immediately afterwards, the
hotel desk clerk bolts from the building with a panicked face. The banker
enters the hotel, casually walks behind the now unattended front desk and
retrieves the master key card. He tucks the prepaid cell phone back into his
pocket, making a mental note to dispose of it later. Then the man strolls to
the elevator, riding it up to the fifth floor. His wife always used the same
room for her tennis
lessons
. He’d found that out during the month of
surveillance.

The man exits the elevator and
walks to room 503. There’s a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the knob. The banker
chuckles to himself. He slips the key card through the scanner with steady,
surgeon hands – calm as can be. The door swings open. He moseys along inside to
find his wife right in the middle of a
big match
, the game winning point
in fact. Both players, the wife and her beau, glance upward startled by the
fake bearded man. The banker pulls the pistol out from his pocket. Our lovely
lady, on top of the scorecards by all accounts, attempts to shriek in fright –
she is cut short, summarily shot dead along with her opponent. Game. Set.
Match.

Before leaving, the banker
places a card into the dead man’s pocket. During his investigation he
discovered that the lover had a few outstanding debts to some very unhappy
bookies. The banker had gone to the man’s house earlier and stolen what little
money was in the apartment. This card was to deceive the police, making them
suspect a mob hit.

It worked like a charm. He
heads home, sneaks back into the house and enters the living room through the
office door. The maid is still busy cleaning away. She assumes he’s been in
there the entire time. Police discover their two bodies the next morning. Our
heroic banker plays the role of disconsolate husband to the letter. No one
suspects him of a thing. It’s written off as a double homicide committed by
peeved mobsters. An investigation is prompted by the banker, presumably to hunt
down his wife’s murderer. Shortly thereafter, the bookie is forced out of town
due to the constant hounding of police. The banker pays off the mobster to
conciliate any harsh feelings.

Three years go by with the
case being left cold. It is only due to vanity that the banker is eventually
caught. He writes a boastful letter detailing every step of his crime and mails
it to the local paper. Within hours of its publication, police bring him into
custody, where he is soon charged with murder. Two life sentences without the
possibility of parole is the reward for a perfect crime.

I envy that man, aside from
the getting captured part, of course. These are the cases that interest me.
Flawless. Faultless. Untraceable.