This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “I wrote this in the dark” Down in the Dirt, v207 (5/23) Order the paperback book: |
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The Gray
Relvin González Rodríguez
David opened his eyes, and he couldn’t feel his little toe. Does anyone ever feel their little toe? He wondered. But when he uncovered his leg, his little toe had turned gray and had hardened. I’m sure it will go away, he said, and brushed his teeth and headed to work.
“How was your weekend?” Penny, the receptionist, said.
“Fine, very fine indeed.”
David liked gray suits. He wore them every day, and while everyone else had evolved to backpacks or lunchboxes, David enjoyed walking around carrying a black leather briefcase. He enjoyed the snap of the silver locks once he sat at his desk and ruffled through the tasks of the day; it made the same sounds his piano road case made when opened, some decades ago now. All the desks had a cork board side where people pinned printed quotes and family pictures. Once every hour, people shifted to that side for a second and turned back to work.
David was deep in concentration when a person approached his ear. “Hey,”—the voice whispered—“Freddy’s or Sally’s, what do you think? The vote is three to one.”
“Nah, we did Freddy’s yesterday.”
“So, Sally’s?”
Who cares? He wanted to say; it doesn’t matter, this doesn’t matter, nothing does, but a book he read over the weekend told him to find joy in everything. He turned around to the cork wall and back to the voice.
“Sure. It’s Wednesday.”
“Chicken Strips. Wild.”
The face left with a smile, and David returned to a half filled spreadsheet.
Later that night, his wife sat at the opposite corner of the living room couch with an easel in front of her, and the dog ran behind the toddler, who ran behind the dog, and the TV was on but no one was watching, but it was nice to have a light on, he thought, in case something happened.
Just after midnight, where the only sound was the inefficiency of an old HVAC system, David walked into another room. The door squealed as he opened it, but no one noticed. He turned the light on and breathed in the musty smell. The fibers on the carpet felt somewhat firmer to walk on, but he limped towards a grand piano that stood against a side wall. He ran his fingers across the black and white keys, and left a clean trail amid the dust and the cobwebs, and it made the slightest sound. He froze for a few seconds and looked at both sides of the hall. When nothing changed, he turned around, shut the door behind him, and went back to bed.
When he removed the blanket, the gray had spread to his other toes and had taken over his calf, and while the empty house had been a blessing in the past, where he stood in his private room and looked around trying to solve the mystery of where it all went, his life I mean, today he received it in a panic. Still, he remembered the fitness guru he enjoyed watching on his phone. “Walk straight, stay strong”, the guru said, and carried on his morning routine. Nothing some meditation and a brisk walk under the twilight can’t fix, he thought, and ordered a cane on his computer, which was waiting for him when he turned back half a block later after his gray leg became more than a nuisance. He couldn’t walk.
“I love the cane.” Penny said. “It suits you.”
Spring had turned into Christmas, and Johnny needed to roll David in for his famous office party speech. Steve, his supervisor, had asked Kerry, his supervisor, if he could give David a raise, which he denied, but when David had gone back to his desk that day, he found a certificate neatly pinned on his board, instead of pictures of his trips to Ireland and performances of his old band, for his contributions on the millionth filled spreadsheet. But David couldn’t walk anymore, and Steve had hired the best contractors to build the best ramp with the best slope, as well as researched the best company-wide training to foster the most inclusive culture the corporate world had ever seen. Steve won the manager of the year award, which discolored through time on the desk of his corner office, where the sun rose on one window and descended from another. This infuriated Steve, who preferred very much to keep his things looking as the day he bought them, and the award found his home in the bottom drawer of his desk, and only made its desktop debut on special one on one’s with Kerry.
It finally arrived, the VoiceBox 3000, in the mail ten years later. His body was gray up to his throat.
“Shall I open it?”
David blinked once.
His wife pulled on one ribbon, sliding her thumb softly on the rigid fabric. David looked at her hands, and followed her fingers up to the end of the bow’s tail, and wondered if he would ever get to see the VoiceBox. Then he noticed her fingers had paint on them, remnants of her latest masterpiece, and worried she might get the paint all over the VoiceBox.
The VoiceBox 3000 was a black box with a strap and a power button. It used an open source algorithm to broadcast thoughts into the world. Any type of receiver captured the message and converted it to audio, text, or images. It was all the rave.
“It doesn’t come with a receiver?” She said.
David blinked twice.
His teenage daughter bumped into him. “I can’t believe I’m going to be late because of this.” It was the first day of her freshman year.
“I love her to death, but sometimes I am glad that she’s out there doing her own thing for a few hours, you know? She’s at that age. I am almost done with the piece for Mr. Lorenzo. What do you say if we go away this weekend? We can go up to the mountains and read in front of a fireplace.”
David blinked at regular intervals but never took his gaze away from the road, and his wife looked at the VoiceBox strapped to his head, stopped talking, imagined his thoughts, and translated his blinks to match her fantasy.
His wife rolled him in front of the sliding doors and knelt down next to him, but the chair rolled forward before her lips reached his cheek. He could hear the chatter of robotic voices a few meters away. The receptionist wore a shirt up to her neck. She smiled, and a screen behind her played a video of a woman waving her hand.
Steve leaned against the entrance to his office while a crew installed screens throughout the floor plan. He gestured his mug to David, and his watch lighted up with a video of Mike Tyson punching Marvis Frazier.
A screen displayed four squares with pizza, barbecue, fried rice, and a sandwich when he rolled onto his desk. Johnny peered over his desk at David, but he could only see his VoiceBox, forehead, and eyes. David wished he could turn to his cork wall, where the certificate covered the pictures, but he didn’t remember there were ever pictures at all, yet he remembered the certificate, and smiled. He rolled in near the receiver and thought of working, and the tasks spun in front of him and a counter went up with each completed task. In the evening, Steve stood near the entrance as the employees rolled out.
“105? Nice job Greg.” He said. “Paul, 15? We can do better, buddy.”
Steve looked at his watch as David rolled up to him, and David looked at him for a long time, but the screen remained black. David smiled and rolled away. Steve focused on the cork boards and assortment of pinned plans, past and future, and felt a sudden urge, almost like a flurry of cold air, but not quite, and then the foreground blurred, and in the distance there was Kerry, making his rounds, snapping things out of the cork half walls and placing them in a box dovetailed with his own hands, and stamping certificates of accomplishment in their place.
“Steve, boy, come here.” Kerry said. “Help me with these pictures. Just snap them off.”
I will not, never, this is not me, he thought, but complied anyway. His thumb turned gray starting at the tip of the nail, and he couldn’t grab the pictures with his right hand anymore.
“Don’t you turn soft on me, kid.” Kerry said.
Steve started using his left hand. It took him way longer.
The chair at the front desk turned empty against the slight wind of the open door. A customer walked in to the corporate office. The line in the storefront across the street had been growing throughout the day, and from the tribe of desperation came forth a hero.
“No, longer.” Kerry said.
“But I’m barely moving.” Steve said.
“And you need to move slower.”
“But he will not have the document. We are almost closing.”
“Precisely. Longer.”
“What do I tell the rest of the line?”
“They should come back tomorrow, early.”
“The lady over there has been coming for a week.”
“She’s certainly insane. Look. Look. She has an umbrella. It’s a hundred degrees out!”
“She used that this morning to cover herself from the sun.”
“She should have taken the express line for seniors.”
“She tried that last Monday, but remember? You trained John to treat the express line as the line for people who are not in a rush. You told him to take it extra slow!”
“Oh, that’s right. That’s right! Now return to pressing your keys until that clock reaches 6.”
“I’m very sorry, sir. The system is not working right, and we are closed now. Come back in tomorrow morning. I understand, sir. I am very sorry.”
“Thank you, Steve, for the ride.”
“Certainly, sir.”
“Look. Look at all the houses with their lights on in the living room.”
“I always wonder what they are watching.”
“Something. Anything. They know they should do something else. That their youth went somewhere, somehow, but they don’t recall where. We did good, Steve, we did good.”
“But what is the point?”
“Never mind the point! We do our job, and we do it well. Stay your course and soon you will be a manager. Manager! Can you believe it?”
“It’s certainly an honor.”
The road got darker as the two drove down steep curves and narrow streets. Kerry laughed whenever they rolled over a pothole. The cars behind flashed their lights, from dipped to full beam, and Steve pressed on the accelerator. Kerry laughed maniacally, diabolically, and Steve chuckled.
“Come on, faster. Faster!” Kerry said.
“It says 25 miles per hour limit.”
“Ah shucks, Steve, screw the limit. Faster, faster!” Kerry said, and held on to the door.
Steve rolled down the windows and pressed harder on the accelerator.
“Now you get it!” Kerry said.
“Fuck you! Fuck you!”
“That’s right Steve!”
“Fuck you all!”
“That’s right.”
“Fuck you all, motherfuckers! You will never be something!”
“Yeah.”
“You will grow fat and old, and dead!”
“Ok.”
Steve drove over another pothole, the deepest one yet.
“Don’t miss my street, Steve.”
Kerry stepped out. He kept the door open for a few seconds and looked at Steve, then closed the door.
“Don’t go anywhere.”
Kerry came back holding a wooden box.
“Here you go.”
“What is that for?” Steve said.
“There might still be time for you.”
He threw the keys on the kitchen counter, used one foot to take the shoe off another, and sat on the living room recliner. The remote waited for him on the left armrest. Kerry turned on the TV, and the pictures flashed over his eyes. Outside, a car squealed its tires and drove away.
The front door had never buzzed before. David’s wife and daughter turned their heads at once, and David’s eyes ping-ponged between the two.
“I’m sorry Ma’am.” The tall man removed his hat. “You don’t know me. I work with your husband. Is he here?”
“David? Of course. Honey, there’s someone here to see you.”
His wheelchair tried to move, but his wife had set the safety breaks on.
“Oh, don’t be such a grumpy old man.” She turned around. “Here, take a seat.”
The others left the room as Steve sat next to David. “Oh, my.” He noticed the gray at the bottom of David’s eyes. “Isn’t this horrifying? All of it.”
He opened a box and placed it next to David, and a picture stack decompressed and overflowed the box. Several slid to the side and landed on the couch. The top one showed David playing the piano. His fingers twitched, and a layer of gray cracked and broke off his hand.
His wife ran in and knelt before him. “David!”
“Dad?” His daughter said.
Steve walked out the door and into his car. He reached down to the company address book and crossed off David’s address. It was way easier without the gray.