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The Comfort of Calculations

Matthew Franks



“What is that stench?” Charles asked aloud after repressing the thought as long as he could.

He had taken his usual place at the small, mahogany desk in the corner of the living room, settling in for an evening of overtime after an already exhausting day of work as the regional manager for The First American Bank. He had been crunching numbers into a worn out calculator when a progressively reprehensible smell began to permeate through the entire house. No longer able to bear the frustration of being disturbed, Charles left his desk to investigate the mysterious odor.

He went into the kitchen and dug through the trash. Perhaps, he thought to himself, the remains of a thrown away rotisserie chicken had rotted and was now letting him know it was past time to take out the accumulating waste. No such easy resolution. Despite his concerted efforts, Charles could not find the source of the decay amidst the discarded milk cartons and empty soup cans. Feeling helpless, Charles ventured on to other areas of the house, peeking in various bedrooms and closets in a vain attempt to discover the culprit.

Put simply, the house was in shambles. Since his wife left him unexpectedly after six years of marriage, Charles became less inclined to take care of things in her absence. Magazines lay strewn across floors, beds in guest rooms remained unmade, and new forms of life appeared to be evolving from the mold that sprung up in the bathtubs. Still, Charles’ search proved fruitless. The origin of the heinous scent was not as easily accounted for as he had hoped.

Even before the separation, Charles lived in disarray. As early as junior high school, he would forget what he was doing during such elementary tasks as tying his shoes before going out. He became confused during tests, at times even blanking out completely despite having crammed for hours the night before. On into his teenage years, he got worse. After successfully obtaining a driver’s license, he found himself parked in a ditch without a clue as to how he had ended up there.

Needless to say, Charles’ parents were concerned. They sent him to a psychiatrist in hopes of finding a quick remedy to their son’s peculiar mental state. Even with a long series of psychological questionnaires, probing assessments, and informal counseling sessions, no solution could be found. According to the diagnosticians, Charles was an average teenager, easily distracted yet overall relatively functional.

Through college, the episodes lasted increasingly longer. For days at a time, Charles couldn’t account for where he had been or what he had done. In denial about the potential consequences of such an ailment, Charles accepted a friend’s proposition that he had been blacking out during heavy bouts of binge drinking. He convinced himself he was an alcoholic regardless of the fact he only drank moderately and in social situations.

Pretending that his problem didn’t exist, he graduated with a business degree and, with a love for mathematics and accounting, climbed up the corporate ladder in eight short years. At work, the bank tellers called Charles ‘Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde’ behind his back. Close friends and associates described what they saw as ‘black and white’ behavior. Some times Charles was a nice guy. Other times, he got downright nasty. Charles, of course, thought they were pulling his leg. One female employee even filed a lawsuit against him for threatening her with an envelope opener. Charles had no recollection of this. The case was eventually dismissed due to lack of evidence as well as Charles’ spotless criminal record.

“I’m telling you, Dave,” he spoke into the master bedroom telephone. “It smells like something died in here. We better not have rats again. Hang on, Dave.”

Charles clicked over on call waiting.



“Hello? Oh, hi Barbara...No. I haven’t heard from her...I know she’s your sister. She’s my wife, remember? Look, I’ll call you when I know something. Okay?”

Charles clicked back to Dave.

“Hey. I better call the exterminator. I’ll see you at the office tomorrow. Of course, the Peterson file is under control. Don’t worry.”

Charles hated waiting. The smell became more pungent and the elevator music they were pumping through the line didn’t help matters any. All he wanted to do was go back to his calculations. He felt in control with his rows of numbers, his interest reports, and his monthly summaries. All other times, he just felt insecure. He wondered if his wife left him because of his tendency to detach. Whatever the case, the last thing in the world he felt like dealing with was some flim flam bugman who would no doubt charge him for a full fumigation.

“Johnson Exterminators,” a well trained voice came on the line. “How may I help you today?”

When the bugman arrived, Charles stood idly by on the brink of full blown nausea. The bugman couldn’t readily diagnose the problem. He routinely sprayed along the walls and laid traps in various nooks and crannies, but, for the life of him, had no idea how to identify the smell. He even flipped through his exterminator manual as if it had a scratch and sniff section. Though his pride had definitely been wounded, the bugman didn't give up without a fight.

“You got a basement?” he asked Charles. “Sometimes certain species breed closer to underground.”

Charles led the bugman down into the cellar. The ghosts of broken down kitchen appliances lay covered in dust. An old dilapidated couch sat conspicuously in the corner of the room. Charles had to cover his nose. They had discovered the source. The bugman lurked around, peeking up at the ceilings and along the walls for signs of life or otherwise. Charles couldn’t remember the last time he had been down there. Surely, he thought to himself, I wouldn’t let things get so disorderly.

“We don’t use this room much,” Charles, now feeling a little embarrassed, told the bugman. “You go about your normal business, sometimes you forget a place exists.”

The bugman stopped dead in his tracks. He noticed something, that as a typical and humble exterminator, he did not see very often. Sticking out from under the couch was a human foot. Though he did not consider himself a detective by any means, he deduced by the shades of red on the toenails, that it belonged to a woman. Acting on instinct, the bugman pushed the couch aside. Lying on the floor, wrapped in a plastic bag, two mysteries were solved. The smell had been coming from Charles’ dead wife; she had evidently been there for some time. Both taken aback, the two men exchanged looks of shock. Charles felt his thoughts slipping.



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