2005-07-02 - 11:57 a.m.
Turner wrote little made-up koans and cinquains and haiku on Post-It notes and stuck them to the underside of his desk. At night after it was dark and everyone had left, he thought, they would detach and fly through the office, swooping low across the rolling chairs and phones with blinking red lights. Then they would go back underneath his desk and be quiet for the next day. He could feel the electricity from them brushing the tops of his thighs when he slid his chair in.
When he first started temping there, they had some labels that he became fascinated by. �LARGE ITEMS� in block letters on pink. �SINGLE ITEMS� on light blue. He tried imagining how the world could be dichotomized into these two categories. Who was a large item? Who was a single item? Could you be both? He could never find out why these labels existed in the supply room and he never saw them applied to anything, but they slowly got used up over his first month there.
Once someone parked a Lamborghini in front of his building. When he went out for a cigarette, he strolled up to it slowly, elaborately fishing in his pocket for the key. He kept an eye out to see how many people�s stares he could attract. More then he expected, it turned out. Of course, when he got up to the door, he didn�t actually have the key. He shrugged and sheepishly grinned to the onlookers to indicate he was just kidding; it wasn�t really his car.
At work, they typed notes into the system in a smushed, vowel-less shorthand. The company was too cheap to get more hard drive space, so everyone signed what they entered with a little handle. Department number and initials. He liked his tag � 5TLC, Turner L. Choi. Certainly better than 2GAG or 3FUK. Didn�t parents think of this when naming their kids?
Few people in the office seemed to receive a paycheck from the company itself. There were like 80 people on the floor and most of them seemed to be employed by one of several temp agencies. Turner�s supervisor worked for a different agency. His supervisor worked for yet another agency. Almost all labor seemed to be outsourced here. Some of the temps were pretty old.
It kind of scared him. Sure, by the time you climbed the temping ladder to long-term supervisory jobs, you were making good money, probably with benefits and everything. But he promised himself he would never become that. How could you be satisfied with that as a career? Was he satisfied now?
Across the street from his office was a Seventh Day Adventist vegan restaurant and he would often go there for lunch. They had an all-you-can-eat buffet for a fairly low price and an ersatz chicken salad that tasted better than any actual chicken salad he�d ever had. Turner wasn�t vegan by any means, but it made him feel superior in a way to eat a lunch without animal products.
The other patrons were usually pretty evenly split between veggie/punk bike messenger-types and office workers looking for a healthy meal. He thought the bike messengers probably had better musical taste, but he didn�t really identify with either side. He would usually stuff himself too much, rising to the challenge of all-you-can-eat (oh yeah?), and would have to fight through a sleepy, carb-induced stupor when he got back to the office.
Sometimes he would bring lunch and eat it in a brick plaza with a fountain a few blocks away. A lot of other workers brought their lunch there and he liked watching the girls in summer dresses and bare legs. Sometimes there was a singer with a guitar doing bad folk covers for spare change, but he kind of wanted to give her money to just stop.
One day, sitting on a bench across from the fountain, he found himself looking at the most beautiful girl he�d ever seen on the edge eating a taco. She was very tall, with her straight black hair in a bun. He thought of her hair coming down in his face, how it would smell. He went back the next day, but she wasn�t there. He went back the day after and she was, sitting in the same spot.
After a week she wore her hair down. It was long and thick and made him think about sand and beaches. She had a salad this time. She was alone again. He thought he would kick himself if he did�t go up.
�So, uhm. Nice day for weather.�
�That�s not very original.�
�Yeah, well. I guess I should work on my approach. Just, y�know. Your hair.�
�What about it?�
�It makes me think of beaches.�
�Hmm. I think that�s a little better. I�m Lia.�
�Turner.�
She was half-Japanese and had grown up here. She went to city college part-time and worked a lot at the Sanrio store. The company with the Hello Kitty line. She was almost six feet tall. He had to go back to work, but gave her his number.
Two days later he found himself �casually� browsing at the Sanrio store, against his better judgment. He didn�t even know if she was there. He started asking another clerk about a wallet with a frog on it. Keropi. Lia came over and said she would handle the sale.
�You don�t really seem the Hello Kitty type.�
�That transparent?�
��Fraid so.�
�I�m curious about the monkey character. You don�t have a lot with him on it.�
�Yeah, well I�ve heard two different stories about him. One is that his name is Monkichi and that�s what we call him here when people ask. The other, well. It�s sort of embarrassing.�
�I think I�d like to see you blush.�
She looked uncertain, raising an eyebrow before seeming to make up her mind. �Well. Okay, I�m really not even sure if this story is true. I�ve also heard that in Japan he�s called Apu Apu. Ape Ape. I�ve heard that the humor behind him is that he�s a parody of African-Americans. But not what you�re thinking.
See, I�ve heard that what�s funny in Japan isn�t that American blacks are like overgrown gorillas. That goes without saying to them. What�s funny is that the rest of American society acts as if they�re normal people. Like there�s just this dopey ape walking around and people are like �Oh, hi Fred!��
�Wow. That�s one of the most repulsive things I�ve ever heard. I hope it�s not really true.�
�Me too.�
�Do I want to ask you to dinner?�
�After I told a story like that? I�m not sure I would.�
�Shoot. I think I have disgustingly low appropriateness today. Plus, y�know. Your hair.�
�You like it? I�ve been wearing it down more.�
�It makes me think of beaches.�
�You�ve said.�
�Friday at seven?�
She looked at him with a raised eyebrow again.
�Yeah, all right.�
� 2005 Geoff Gladstone
Sign My Guestbook!
powered by SignMyGuestbook.com
�
