Joshua Ferris - Then We Came to the End

“What’s funny about what?” Max finally said.

“What’s funny about breast cancer,” said Jim. “Not breast cancer per se, you know, but what’s funny to somebody with breast cancer flipping through a magazine.”

Max cleared his throat. “Jim,” he said, “do you recall a sweet old gal, just the salt of the earth, probably the sweetest woman you ever met in your life, by the name of Edna?”

“Edna,” said Jim. “Edna. . Edna. . No, I don’t think so, Uncle Max.”

“You don’t remember your aunt Edna?”

“Oh, Aunt Edna. Of course I remember Aunt Edna, Uncle Max.”

“Edna died of breast cancer,” said Max.

“She did? Aunt Edna?”

Now Jim realized why his dad had suggested he call Max. It wasn’t because of Max’s marketing wit. It was because Max’s wife had died of the disease. Suddenly Jim realized he should have approached things differently. His phrasing might have been a little cavalier. “Uncle Max, I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess I didn’t remember how Aunt Edna died.”

“It sounds to me,” said Max, “that you don’t know much of anything on the subject.”

“I remember the funeral,” said Jim. “I was seventeen.”

“They don’t typically sit in the waiting room flipping through magazines,” said Max. “Their minds aren’t half on something else.”

“You see, we’re. . we’re doing this, uh, a pro bono campaign,” Jim stuttered.

“But there ain’t nothing funny about it,” said Max, “that I ever saw.”

“And what we’re trying to do is, we’re just trying to lift their spirits a little.”

“And there ain’t nothing left to say in this conversation.”

“WELL, I’M TAPPED,” said Jim, when he made it down to the coffee bar.

“It’s an impossible assignment,” Benny agreed, pulling a stool out for him.

“I got a few ideas,” said Marcia, taking possession of a chai latte from the barista. “Thanks,” she said, handing off a dollar. “But they’re all tired and stale.”

“I have one thing that’s funny,” said Larry. “One thing. But I think it’s funny only if you’re already dead.”

“There are two things you just can’t advertise,” said Hank matter-of-factly. “Fat people and dead people.”

“Is that a quote, Hank?”

“They’re not dead, Hank,” said Amber. “They’re just sick.”

“Fat people and dying people, then.”

“Suicides are tough,” added Larry.

Chris Yop showed up looking furtive and unwell, vigilant despite familiar surroundings, carrying some rough layouts on sketch paper. Significant sweat blots under the arms of his Hawaiian shirt indicated a higher level of vascular dysfunction than we were accustomed to. He had evidently been hard at work. “I need someone to take these in to Lynn,” he announced, setting his layouts on the coffee bar. We asked him what they were. “My concepts for the fund-raiser ads,” he said. “I think they’re pretty good.”

“Humbly you submit,” said Larry, picking them off the coffee bar.

It was obviously just plain wrong that the man was still in the building a full day after being laid off. But to have concepts, too? Some nerve system crucial to an understanding of the agreement one enters into when engaging in the capitalist system had obviously gone haywire in him, along with the rest of his ailing networks.

“The problem I’m having,” he said, glancing back as if spooked, “is I can’t get credit for them because, well, you know, officially. .”

“You’re insane?” said Marcia.

“No, Marcia, ” he said, “not because I’m insane. Because officially I don’t work here anymore.”

“Oh, right,” said Marcia, taking a sip of her latte. “Forgot that detail. But I wouldn’t worry, Chris. I’ve seen your resume. They’re going to scoop you right up.”

“Why are you being mean to me, Marcia?”

“Because you called me Karen!”

“Chris,” said Benny, “listen. The project’s changed.”

Yop’s attention was suddenly focused on the opening elevator doors.

“Chris? Are you listening to me?”

“Sorry,” said Yop, snapping back. “Benny, is Lynn really in today? Or was Dan Wisdom just fucking with me?”

“Chris, listen. It’s no longer an ad for the fund-raiser. It’s this other thing now.”

“What other thing?”

“The project’s changed,” he repeated.

“But I’ve been working on fund-raiser ads,” said Yop. “I was hoping you guys could take these in to Lynn and, you know, let it slip I came up with them.”

“I don’t think you want credit for these,” said Larry, setting the ads back down on the coffee bar.

“Now you’re telling me the project’s changed? — Go screw, Larry. — Benny, I spent a lot of time on these. I worked hard, man. I’m trying to get my job back here.”

He paused to order a decaf from the barista.

“Chris,” said Benny. “Shouldn’t you go home? Shouldn’t you stop worrying about these ads and go home and talk to your wife?”

Yop looked away, distant and pensive. He removed a napkin from the dispenser on the coffee bar and wiped sweat from his brow. Then he set his head down on the bar, losing it inside his arms. He stayed that way for a while. When he looked up again, nudged by the barista holding his coffee out to him, his eyes were bloodshot and veiny. “Thanks,” he said, taking the cup. He handed off his dollar. “Will somebody do me a favor, please,” he asked. “Will somebody please e-mail me with details on how the job has changed? Will someone do that for me, please?”

Before departing, he turned back to Marcia. “I’m sorry I called you Karen this morning,” he said. “I know you’re Marcia. My brain is fried, I just got confused.”

He hurried off down the hall, staying close to the walls.

“‘Tomorrow morning there’ll be laundry,’” said Hank. “‘But he’ll be somewhere else to hear the call.’”

Karen Woo came toward us from the opposite direction.

“Everybody come with me,” she said.

She reversed in her tracks and headed back to her office.

When we got down there she was sitting behind her desk holding the phone to her ear. She said to the person on the other end that she wished to speak with a nurse in the oncology department. As she waited to be transferred, no one spoke. We couldn’t believe it — she was making the call. Her cool composure was astounding, preternatural, and somewhat sinister. When the nurse came on, she remained confident and in character. We held her in awe.

But as we waited, it was almost as if something swept the room and a collective epiphany dawned upon all of us at once and we knew for certain how wrong we had been about everything. No one would just miss a crucial operation. A crucial operation must have never been scheduled. Why had we not bowed to the eminently more reasonable likelihood that there was no cancer? That it was just a rumor, as Larry had suggested. Or if Lynn did have cancer and an operation had been scheduled, there were a thousand very simple explanations for why she might have missed it. Some scheduling conflict with the doctor, some clarification was needed in the diagnosis, more tests had to be taken, blood drawn, the doctor was sick, the hospital had lost power. All today’s intrigue was just cheap talk to better dramatize our lives. Why had we not seen it before Karen got on the phone with the nurse? Oh, to be seduced by that meddling, insensitive woman! To play along in her deception just to have our craven tabloid hysterias confirmed or denied. It was despicable. We were despicable. We should have stood up immediately, denounced her actions with one voice, and demanded that she —