Joshua Ferris - Then We Came to the End

Jim returned to the booth and slid into his seat.

“I saw her,” he said.

Karen said, “Is it not the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen?”

“I don’t know,” he said, nodding slowly. “I’m still just trying to believe it.”

The next day Karen and Jim convinced Benny Shassburger to go to the McDonald’s with them. They didn’t tell him why, they just said there was something there that he’d want to see. They all ordered lunch. “So why am I here?” asked Benny when they sat down. “Because Janine Gorjanc —” Jim began, only to be immediately cut off by Karen. “Don’t tell him!” she cried, slapping his hand. “It won’t have the same impact if he hears about it before he sees it.” “What am I seeing?” said Benny. “Okay,” said Karen, “I want you to go to the bathroom, and on your way there, I want you to look through the door to the play area. You know what the play area is, right? Don’t stare, don’t open the door. Just peek through. Got it?” Benny came back and said, “What the hell is it?” “It’s Janine Gorjanc,” said Karen. “Yeah, I know that,” said Benny. “But what is she doing in there?” Jim and Karen shrugged speechlessly. “I gotta see it again,” said Benny, rising again from the booth.

He lingered at the men’s room. Janine sat hunched over the colored balls with her legs submerged. She had hold of a ball and she was tossing it slowly between her hands. She dropped it and picked up another one. Then she scooped up several balls at once and spilled them out upon her lap, and some of them remained caught there as she laced her arms under her thighs and hugged herself.

Benny returned to the booth. “It’s like she’s a five-year-old,” he said.

“Is it not the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen?” asked Karen.

On the third day they brought Marcia Dwyer with them. They went through the procedure with Marcia and when Marcia returned from the restroom she said, “Yeah, that is a little strange.” “A little strange?” said Karen. “It’s a little more than a little strange, Marcia.” “You dumbasses,” said Marcia, looking around at the collection of morons some random lottery had stuck her with. “She’s mourning. ” “Mourning?” said Jim. “Yeah, mourning,” said Marcia. “Grieving. Ever hear of it?” “Is that what she’s doing?” asked Jim. “She’s mourning?” “Of course she’s mourning,” said Karen. “But who mourns like that?” Marcia replied sensibly that different people mourned in different ways. “Some people don’t even cry,” she said. “Some people can’t stop crying. It all depends.” “Yeah, but you don’t seem to be getting it, Marcia,” said Karen. “She’s in a pool of plastic balls in the middle of a McDonald’s. That’s just fucking weird.”

Jim begged off the next day, and so did Benny, but Karen managed to convince Amber Ludwig to eat at McDonald’s with her, and with Amber came Larry Novotny. When Amber returned to the booth she was in tears. The day after that, Dan Wisdom accompanied Karen to the McDonald’s. Then the weekend passed, and on Monday it was Chris Yop. On Tuesday, Reiser limped over there. No one really wanted to go. It was McDonald’s, after all, and lunch with Karen was always an earful. But she was so persistent, people went just to get her off their backs. Then there was Janine, sitting in the pool of plastic balls, and everyone knew why they had come.

Over the course of the next few weeks, practically everyone made it over to the McDonald’s. If Karen couldn’t go, they went without her. That is to say, we went without her. You see, everyone was talking about it. It wasn’t something you could afford to miss. You had to go. First you heard about it, then you had to witness it for yourself. You stood in front of the bathroom as if you had every intention of going inside, but instead you stared through the door, through the netting, and spied the unmistakable, hunched figure of Janine Gorjanc — sometimes staring off at nothing, other times addressing the balls in some way, holding them or tossing them or skimming her hands over their undulating surface. You went so that when you got back to the office, you, too, could testify that you had seen it — Janine Gorjanc in the pool of plastic balls — and what a peculiar sight it was.

JOE POPE CAME UP the elevator with his bicycle and walked it down the hall to his office where he found Mike Boroshansky, dressed in a navy blue suit coat, leaning his butt against the back credenza, and Benny’s friend Roland standing with his back against the wall, waiting for him to arrive. The laptop, which had gone missing the week prior, sat on top of Joe’s uncluttered desk, as did the office curios which had proven thin enough to slip between his wall and bookshelf: green license plates from Vermont, a frame of Burt Lancaster and Frank Sinatra in navy-issued uniforms gathered with others in a bar. People passing by recognized those things because they were accustomed to seeing them in different offices.

“Why don’t you close the door, Joe?” Mike Boroshansky suggested. “Lynn should be down here any minute.”

The whole thing was cleared up in half an hour. Not long after Lynn entered, Genevieve Latko-Devine was seen knocking at Joe’s door. The usual suspect was brought in — this was several months before Tom was sacked, but he was always riding on thin ice. We could hear his muffled protestations through the paper-thin walls. They were interrupted by Benny Shassburger. To Benny’s credit, he went in there of his own accord. He didn’t have to go in; he could have stayed out of it. Roland never said it was he who had first suggested Joe Pope’s office might be one of interest. Lynn Mason wanted to know who was responsible. “Give me a name, Benny,” she said. Benny deflected her request. “It wasn’t any one person, I don’t think,” he said. “It was more of like a zeitgeist.” “‘Zeitgeist’? What’s that, what’s a ‘zeitgeist,’ Benny?” “You know,” he said. “No, I don’t know,” countered Lynn. “All due respect, Benny, I think art directors should avoid using fancy words. If you have a name for me of who’s responsible for this, I’d like you to say it.” “I don’t have a name for you,” he said. “It was just something going around, a lot of people were talking about it. It was a joke, I thought.” “Sounds like you must have a whole bunch of names for me, then,” replied Lynn. “Yeah, but not one specific name,” said Benny. “Honest — I don’t know whose idea it was, and I don’t know who did it. But I can tell you that it wasn’t Tom.” “I swear to god I’m not guilty of this one,” said Tom. Lynn ignored him. “Next time,” Lynn said, “that you tap into a ‘zeitgeist’ around here, Benny? The first person I’d like you to come talk to is me. Otherwise, I’ll come up with a name myself, and I don’t think you’ll like the name I come up with. Understood?” “I understand,” he said. As he was leaving, he heard her say, “Jesus Christ, these people do the stupidest shit.”

“Nice to have your laptop back, anyway,” said Mike Boroshansky.

“Joe,” she said. “I’m sorry about this.”

Joe waved it away. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

“How about we fire every fucking one of them,” she said.

At noon that day, Benny said to Roland, “Man, I told you not to go in there anymore, didn’t I? Didn’t I say he wasn’t your guy?” “You did,” said Roland. “So why’d you have to go in there?” “It gets boring doing a night shift, Benny,” Roland replied defensively. “You ever work a night shift? You do whatever you can to kill time. I didn’t expect to find anything. But there it all was! What was I supposed to do then?” “Yeah, but if you would have just stayed out of there,” said Benny, “none of this would have happened, and I wouldn’t be in trouble with Lynn.” “How was I supposed to know they were setting the guy up, Benny?”