Then We Came to the End

  Finally Hank closed his book and said, “Thank you.” We applauded approvingly.

  AFTER THE READING CONCLUDED, we milled about. We bought copies of Hank’s book. We went up to congratulate him. We were all handshakes and hugs and he signed our books with personal good wishes. Someone asked him if this book was the same book as the one he had talked about during our time together, his small, angry book about work. Thanks to being laid off and forced to find new jobs, we had discovered that every agency has its frustrated copywriter whose real life was being a failed novelist working on a small, angry book about work. Work was a fetishistic subject for some of our colleagues, but unlike Don Blattner, who wanted everyone to read his screenplays so long as they signed confidentiality agreements, the book writers played their cards much closer to the vest, and usually ended up folding. Howling screeds went mute inside desk drawers. Lovingly ground axes melted in fireplaces. We felt grateful on behalf of the world.

  “No,” Hank replied. “This is a different book.”

  “What happened to the old one?” someone asked. He had such ambition for it.

  “That one was put down like an ailing dog,” he said. “But how about you?” he asked suddenly, looking around. “What’s new with you guys?”

  We could tell he was eager to shift the spotlight from his failed novel onto something else, so Benny and Marcia announced that they were getting married in the fall.

  “If he doesn’t piss me off before then,” she said, looking at Benny affectionately.

  She wore an achingly modest diamond ring and threaded her arm through Benny’s just as Benny shared the equally incredible news that, for all intents and purposes, Jim Jackers was his new boss.

  “Can you believe that?” he said. “This guy right here!”

  He put his arm around Jim and bent his head down like he was about to give him a noogie. Jim raised his eyebrows in mute and modest capitulation and for a moment the three of them, Marcia and Benny and Jim, were linked physically as if they were a little family.

  Carl told us the details of his landscaping company, Garbedian and Son, a modest outfit. “Come on, be honest,” Marilynn said. She turned to Hank. “It’s a phenomenon, is what it is.” “Is that true, Carl?” asked Hank. We all urged Carl to tell us more. Finally he admitted, “We do work in about twenty suburbs.” We thought, Holy shit! Twenty suburbs? The guy must be raking it in. “But you’re still no doctor, are you?” we expected Jim Jackers to say, but he said no such thing, and it didn’t even seem to be on Carl’s mind. He was smiling and nodding and he had his arm around Marilynn as if landscaping had changed his life.

  Amber introduced us to Becky, who was bashful and hid behind her mother’s sturdy leg. We looked around for Larry, but he was gone. We avoided the topic by concentrating on the kid. Eventually we entered back into adult conversation, and that’s when Becky came out from behind Amber’s leg and approached Benny. She seemed interested in introducing him to her naked and soiled doll. He bent down and made its acquaintance. Everyone congratulated Genevieve on her baby as well, and her husband answered for her when we asked how old it was (ten months), because Genevieve and Amber were lost to stories of motherhood.

  The funny thing about work itself, it was so bearable. The dreariest task was perfectly bearable. It presented challenges to overcome, the distraction provided by a sense of urgency, and the satisfaction of a task’s completion — on any given day, those things made work utterly, even harmoniously bearable. What we bitched about, what we couldn’t let lie, what drove us to distraction and consumed us with blind fury, was this person or that who rankled and bugged and offended angels in heaven, who wore their clothes all wrong and foisted upon us their insufferable features, who deserved from a just god nothing but scorn because they were insipid, unpoetic, mercilessly enduring, and lost to the grand gesture. And maybe so, yes, maybe so. But as we stood there, we had a hard time recalling the specific details, because everyone seemed so agreeable.

  At Benny’s suggestion we headed out for a drink. There was an Irish pub nearby and we brought tables together and Carl Garbedian bought the first round, which was only right given his twenty suburbs, and we toasted Hank and his accomplishment, and we talked of regrets and of old times and happily recalled that not all had been misery. By the time we had worked down that first round, we had reason to remember that Benny had been a good storyteller, and Jim Jackers a good sport, and Genevieve a pleasure to look upon. And Lynn Mason, we all agreed, had been a better boss than any we’d found since. Next to Handlebar Harry, who defied our drinking expectations by ordering a cup of decaf, Janine sat sipping her familiar frosted glass of cranberry juice, which was somehow comforting. She reached out to tap Hank on the hand. “I’ve read your book, Hank,” she said.

  “Oh,” said Hank. “Thank you.”

  “It’s about Lynn, isn’t it.”

  “Well,” he said. “Some of it is based on Lynn, yes.”

  We couldn’t believe it. His book was about Lynn?

  “And is it true?” she asked.

  “The book? No, the book is . . . which part?”

  “Any of it.”

  “Well, I visited her several times in the hospital,” he said.

  Wait a minute, we thought, wait a minute. He had visited her in the hospital?

  “In the first book I tried to write,” he explained, “the book I put down, I based a character on Lynn, and I made that character into a tyrant. I did it on principle, because anyone who was a boss in that book had to be a tyrant. Anyone who believed in the merits of capitalism, and soul-destroying corporations, and work work work — all that — naturally that person wasn’t deserving of any sympathy. But when I decided to retire that book, thank god, and write something different, I knew she was sick, so I went to see her. Just on a lark. Because what did I know about her? Nothing, really. I didn’t know her — not in any meaningful way. And it turned out she was very open to talking with me, not only about her sickness, but also her personal life, a lot of other things. She was dying at the time —”

  Jim Jackers stopped him. “What do you mean?”

  “Lynn died in the summer of 2003,” Hank replied. “Of ovarian cancer.”

  “Am I the only one who didn’t know that?” Jim asked, looking around.

  “And I think she knew she was dying,” Hank continued, “and in a way, I also think she hoped that I would write something worth a damn, which I can tell you, I did not. I can assure you I did not. Not with respect to her, anyway.”

  Janine objected. “I’ve read it,” she said. “You most certainly did.”

  “Trust me,” Hank told her. “I didn’t get the half of it.”

  GENEVIEVE AND HER HUSBAND LEFT because they had to put the baby to bed, and we lost Amber and Becky, too. Benny didn’t want them to go — all his windows were fogged up with nostalgia — but they insisted they had to get home. He demanded that the rest of us stay, and so we stayed. Most of us wanted another drink anyway. Marcia hit the jukebox with about a week’s salary and played one saccharine ballad after another and it felt like not a day had passed since we’d parted. Jim Jackers bought the next round, which was only right given his inexplicable rise up the ladder, and the fact that we’d had to suffer him during his weaning years.

  We toasted to Lynn Mason’s memory and found ourselves telling stories of her, encounters and exchanges we had no trouble recalling the way we had, say, encounters with Old Brizz — she was our boss, after all, and we all had our separate and memorable experiences with her. None of us could forget, for example, the thrill and glory we experienced when she took a particular liking to a concept one of us had come up with, and we recalled with startling accuracy what job it was for, and the concept, and the reasons she gave for her admiration. Nobody’s approbation meant more to us than hers, and nothing was easier than recalling her words of approval. We also remembered her expensive and delicate shoes, and the time she showed up at Carl’s bedside with a pathetic bouquet of
flowers, and how she had put up flyers for Janine alongside the rest of us when Jessica went missing, and Jim told us the story of being in an elevator when she told him that she had once been a hula girl. “She was just joking,” he said, “but I took her so seriously.” We remembered that despite how formidable she always seemed, a lot of the things she said were funny.

  By the end of the second round, Sandy Green from payroll said she had to get home, and so did Donald Sato and Paulette Singletary. Benny begged them all to stay. He wanted to talk about whether or not they were currently happy at their new jobs, what the people were like, and if they had any complaints. “You know,” he prodded, “compared to how it used to be.” They stayed for a while longer, but when finally they left, Benny looked downcast. “What was that Tom Mota used to say, the send-off he used to give when somebody quit? Anybody remember?”

  No one did.

  “It was a toast,” said Benny, “and it went something like ‘So good luck to you.’ And then he’d finish off his drink, remember, and sort of burp? And then he’d bring the glass back up and say, ‘And fuck you for leaving, you prick.’”

  Everyone laughed, though it wasn’t strictly speaking very funny — in fact, it was pretty uncomfortable. When the laughter died down, we wondered aloud what had happened to Tom and why he wasn’t at the reading.

  “You don’t know about Tom?” said Carl.

  Nobody knew a thing.

  “Do you know he joined the army?”

  Joined the army? Carl was pulling our leg.

  “No, it’s true.”

  “Come on,” said Benny.

  “Nobody else got Tom’s e-mails?”

  No one could say they had.

  “Strange. He used to write to everybody.”

  “Come on,” said Benny. “They let that nut join the army?”

  “Superior marksmanship skills,” Carl said simply.

  Suddenly a crazy notion almost seemed possible.

  “He was looking at jail time,” Carl continued, “you know that much. But his wife, Barb, testified on his behalf. And so did Joe Pope. Yeah,” he said, to our expressions of disbelief. “And so the DA agreed to reduce the charges down to a misdemeanor. After that, he came to work for me for a time. But not for very long. He kept talking about wanting to join up — after all that had happened, you know. He just couldn’t get it out of his head. He was afraid he was too old. And he was afraid they wouldn’t take him because of his record. But it kept gnawing at him. He wouldn’t go down to talk to a recruiter, though, because he was afraid they’d tell him no — he wanted it so badly. He didn’t want somebody telling him no. But one day on a prayer he just went down there, and by sheer luck, he and the recruiting officer hit it off, they just hit it off right away. Tom told him what he wanted to do and how bad he wanted it, and the guy, the recruiting officer, arranged it so Tom could show him what he had to offer. And after they saw him shoot, they said, You want to join up, we’re happy to have you. So Tom joined the army.”

  Carl had to be joking.

  “No, he’s not,” said Janine.

  We all looked at Janine. Did she get e-mails from Tom, too?

  “He wrote me letters,” she replied.

  “He said it was the best decision he ever made,” said Carl.

  “And he never regretted it,” said Janine. “He was happy to be there. He was happy to be doing what he was doing.”

  “He believed, you know,” said Carl, “in fighting for his country.”

  “He called it — and I will always remember Tom for many things,” said Janine. “But one thing he wrote I will never forget. I still have the letter. He called this country the best republic that ever began to fade. Those were his exact words. I still have it. He was very proud that they put him in a special marksman’s division.”

  “It comes as no surprise to anybody that Tom had good aim, I guess,” said Carl.

  The tears that hung in Janine’s eyes were familiar, despite all the new leather. “And he was probably a good soldier, too — wouldn’t you think, Carl?”

  “It was discipline he had needed for thirty-seven years. At least that’s how he put it to me,” said Carl.

  “Which is still very young,” said Janine. “Thirty-seven.”

  “Yes,” Carl agreed. “Very young.”

  “What happened?” asked Benny. “What happened to him?”

  Everyone ordered martinis in Tom’s honor, and toasted him as a patriot and a scholar, a good soldier, and a lousy corporate citizen. We thanked him for sending outlandish e-mails, for the antics inspired by his consumption of two martinis at lunch, and for all the crazy shit he did that in hindsight had provided us with a lot of entertainment, without which our afternoons would have been longer and our lives more dull. He had been killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan.

  “To Tom,” we said.

  We raised our martini glasses. “To Tom.”

  “Goodness,” said Janine, with a sour face. “How could he have enjoyed such things?”

  WITHOUT DON BLATTNER, we might have lost ourselves to the oblivion of drink and dark thoughts, but Hank asked him how his writing was going, and Don let it be known that by some miraculous, persevering nerve of his, he had not given up working on his wretched and unproduceable screenplays. He was in the thick of one even as we spoke, which he believed had real potential. “But I always say that,” said Don. Which was true — he always said that. We asked what his new one was about, and he told us that it was the story of a highly revered Tibetan lama who, on a speaking tour of the United States, gets seduced into the lucrative world of endorsement contracts. He finds himself improving the ads in which he appears, much to the awe and excitement of the hapless creative team in charge of the account, whose cynicism and ennui are at an all-time high. The lama ultimately finds his own true happiness in forsaking his fawning followers for the newly rejuvenated advertising agency, becoming the team’s executive creative director in charge of the Nike, Microsoft, and BMW accounts. He sleeps with models and dies happily reading Time magazine in a whirlpool in Crested Butte, Colorado.

  Everyone thought it was going to be a big hit.

  “We’ll see,” said Don.

  Carl and Marilynn left us, and we lost Janine and Harry to the exigencies of middle-aged sleep. Some other guy left, and Jim turned to Benny. “Benny, who was that guy who just left? We work with that guy?”

  “That was Sanderson,” said Benny. “Bill Sanderson.”

  “Bill Sanderson?”

  “You remember Bill,” said Benny.

  “I have no recollection of that guy.”

  “Sure you do, Jim. You just don’t recognize him without his mustache.”

  Soon Jim himself was preparing to leave. “It’s a school night,” he explained.

  A school night? When had Jim Jackers become so . . . so . . . adult?

  “Jimmy, don’t you leave!” cried Benny.

  “Benny, you’ll see me tomorrow.”

  “Oh, I guess that’s true, isn’t it,” said Benny. “Come here, old buddy.” Benny was on his last drink, according to Marcia. Jim was forced to bend down and hug him.

  “I had better get going myself,” said Reiser.

  “You can’t leave, Reiser!” said Benny. “You haven’t said a word about the people you’re with now. What are they like? Are you happy?”

  Reiser rose as Benny fired off his round of questions, shrugging nonchalantly at each one.

  “But do you miss it?” Benny persisted.

  “Miss what?” asked Reiser.

  “I’ll tell you who I miss,” Benny said. Suddenly he was pulling out his cell phone. “Let’s call Joe Pope!”

  We watched Reiser hobble out of the bar, and for some reason it was comforting to see that he still walked with a limp. As soon as he was gone Benny put his phone up to his ear and tried to get an answer.

  “I must have dialed the wrong extension,” he concluded, hitting end. “That was the desk of someone named Br
ian Bayer. Anybody recognize that name?”

  Nobody did. He must have come after our time. Odd to think they were hiring again. We had a hard time picturing those familiar surroundings peopled by strangers, unfamiliar voices calling out from behind the plasterboard partitions of our old cubicles, unrecognizable men and women sitting in our chairs.

  We asked Benny what extension he was dialing. He had it right — that was Joe’s extension. Nobody could forget it, we had dialed it so often. He hit end a second time. “Brian Bayer again,” he said. He had the ingenious solution of calling the main switchboard. When prompted, he pressed “P” for Pope. “His name isn’t coming up,” he said.

  Don Blattner came back from the men’s room and asked Dan Wisdom if he was ready to go. They had driven together.

  “His name didn’t come up,” said Benny.

  “We had better get going, too, Benny,” said Marcia. “It’s getting late.”

  Don and Dan threw money down on the table and we said good-bye to them. “Hey, wait!” Benny cried out. But he was too distracted to get off the phone, and eventually they left.

  “Where is he?” he said, setting his cell phone down and looking around at the rest of us. “Where’s Joe Pope?”

  “Come on, Benny,” said Marcia, “I’m taking you home.”

  “He’s not in the directory, Marcia. Where is he?”

  “Benny, honey, you’re drunk.”

  “It’s Joe,” he said. “He never leaves his desk.”

  “Benny,” she said.

  “Where’s Genevieve? Where is she? She’ll know where he is.”

  “Genevieve? Benny, honey, she left hours ago.”

  She pried him from his chair.

  “Hank, you must know what happened. What happened to Joe, Hank?”

  But if Hank knew anything, he wasn’t saying. We watched Benny stumble drunkenly to his feet. “But it’s Joe, Marcia,” he said. “Joe doesn’t leave.”