Joshua Ferris - Then We Came to the End

“Tom,” said Carl, “I appreciate the gesture.”

Tom waved him off. “‘Let a man then know his worth,’” he read, “‘and keep things under his feet.’” Tom reading out loud to Carl — the self-consciousness in that room must have been palpable. “‘Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up or down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper, in the world which exists for him. But the man in the street, finding no worth in himself. .’ I’m just going to skip down a little ways here,” said Tom. “Okay, this is the part. ‘That popular fable of the sot,’” he continued, “‘who was picked up dead drunk in the street, carried to the duke’s house, washed and dressed and laid in the duke’s bed, and, on his waking, treated with all obsequious ceremony like the duke, and assured that he had been insane, owes its popularity to the fact, that it symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason, and finds himself a true prince.’” Tom ended his quotation there and shut the book.

“Well,” he said. “Anyway. I think he has a lot of good things to say. ‘Finds himself a true prince.’ That’s hard to keep in mind here, you know? But he tries to remind us, Carl, you and me both — everybody, really — that underneath it all, if we exercise our reason, we’re princes. I know I lose sight of that myself half the time when all I want to do is open fire on these bastards. You see, the problem with reading this guy,” he continued, “is the same problem you have reading Walt Whitman. You read him at all? Those two fucks wouldn’t have lasted two minutes in this place. Somehow they were exempt from office life. It was a different time, back then. And they were geniuses. But when I read them I start to wonder why I have to be here. It almost makes it harder to come in, be honest with you.” Tom handed the book back across the desk. He added with a huffy, defeated chuckle, “That’s a ringing endorsement, huh? Anyway, I’ll let you get back to your lunch.”

When Tom had nearly reached the door, Carl called out to him. “Can I tell you something in confidence, Tom?” he asked. Carl gestured for Tom to return to the chair.

Tom sat, and Carl looked at him for a long time before speaking. Earlier in the week, he confided, he had slipped quietly into Janine Gorjanc’s office after everyone else had gone home for the night and taken a bottle of antidepressants from her desk drawer. Since that time, he told Tom, he had been taking a pill a day.

“Is that wise?” Tom asked.

“Probably not,” said Carl. “But the last thing I want is for her to know that I’m depressed.”

“You don’t want Janine to know that you’re depressed?”

“No, not Janine. My wife. Marilynn. I don’t want Marilynn to know I’m depressed.”

“Oh,” said Tom. “Why’s that?”

“Because she thinks I’m depressed.”

“Oh,” said Tom. “You aren’t depressed?”

“No, I am depressed. It’s just that I don’t want her knowing that I’m depressed. She knows I’m depressed. I just don’t want her knowing that she’s right that I’m depressed. She’s right too much of the time as it is, you see.”

“So this is a matter of pride,” said Tom.

Carl shrugged. “I guess so. If that’s how you care to phrase it.”

Tom shifted in his chair. “Well, you know, Carl, I understand that, man. I can understand that perfectly well, being married for a number of years to a woman who was always goddamn right about everything herself. But man, if you’re taking a drug that hasn’t been prescribed for you specifically —”

“Yeah, I know,” said Carl, cutting him short. “I know all about that, trust me. I’m married to a doctor.”

“Right,” said Tom. “So what I guess I’m asking is, why steal it? Why not have somebody prescribe something that’s right for you?”

“Because I don’t want to have to see a doctor,” said Carl. “I hate doctors.”

“Your wife’s a doctor,” said Tom.

“It’s a problem,” said Carl. “Plus if I did that, it might get back to her somehow, and then she would know that she was right about me being depressed. It’s just easier to go into Janine’s and take it from her. She has a million of these things in there,” he said.

He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a prescription bottle and handed it to Tom.

“Do you know anything about what’s in here?” asked Tom, shaking the bottle gently and reading the label. It was a three-month supply. “Three hundred milligrams,” he said. “That sounds like a lot.”

“I just follow the instructions on the label,” said Carl.

Tom asked him if he had noticed any change in his mood.

“It’s only been a week,” Carl replied. “It’s probably too early yet.”

There was a knock at the door. In silence Tom handed Janine’s drugs back to Carl and Carl returned the bottle to his desk. When Carl called out, Joe Pope appeared.

“Sorry to interrupt you at your lunch, Carl,” he said.

“That’s okay.”

“I’m actually here for Tom,” said Joe.

Tom turned in his chair and gave Joe a sidewinder gaze.

“I wondered if you wouldn’t mind joining us for an input meeting later this afternoon,” Joe inquired of him.

“Sure,” Tom said. “What time?”

“Three-thirty, Lynn’s office?”

“You bet.”

When that got around — Sure, what time? You bet. — we didn’t know what to make of it. All Tom would say was, “What was I supposed to say — no? Go shove it up your ass, Joe, no input meeting for me? I got child support to pay, man. Believe it or not, I need this job.”

We didn’t doubt that. It was just that we could recall a time in the Michigan Room when Tom Mota was less agreeably disposed toward Joe Pope. All of our conference rooms were named after streets running along the Magnificent Mile, and the view from Michigan was stupendous. The whole city was spread out before our eyes, layer after layer of buildings tall and squat, wide and thin, a giant matrix of architectural variation cut up by taxi-glinting thoroughfares and back alleyways and the snaking Chicago River, and every surface from burnished window to ancient brick was brightening under the August sun. The irony of the view from the Michigan Room was that it drove us mad with desire to be out there, walking the city sidewalks, looking up at the buildings, joining the swell of other people and enjoying the sun, but the only time we ever felt that urgency was when we were stuck at the window in the Michigan Room. Otherwise we left for the night and all we could think about was getting around the goddamn tourists and heading the fuck home.

On the day Tom and Joe really had it out, a month or so before Tom’s gift to Carl, it had evidently gotten back to Joe what was said here and there — at a lunch, before a meeting. Idle speculation, you know. Sometimes material for an honest debate where everyone took sides, but more often just as a joke. It’s what we did, we talked. We weren’t doing anything the Greeks weren’t doing around their shadowy, promiscuous campfires. And neither, apparently, was Joe Pope, because just as we were capping our pens, all our notes taken and questions answered, and now only a half minute’s distance from the restroom or telephone or coffee bar — whatever beckoned loudest — Joe, who was running his own input meetings by then, said to us, “Oh, one last thing.” He paused. “Sorry, just give me one more minute here.” We settled back down. “I feel the need to bring this to our attention,” he said. “Look, I understand the need to talk. Most of the time, that’s a good thing. We talk, we laugh. It makes time go faster. But I’m not sure we’re always aware of some of the things we’re saying. We might not mean anything by them, this or that or the other thing might just be a joke, but it gets around, and sometimes, one person or another hears about it and they get upset. Not everybody. Some people just laugh it off. Look, as an example, I know I’m talked about. No big deal to me. I take no offense. But other people, they hear things, it hits them in a certain way. You can’t blame them. They get bothered, or hurt, or it embarrasses them. I’d prefer those type of things we try to keep to a minimum. I’m not saying don’t talk. I’m just saying, reduce the volume a little, make sure that what you’re saying doesn’t hurt anybody. Okay?”