Joshua Ferris - Then We Came to the End

“Jim,” said Benny, shaking his head sadly.

They met in front of a corner convenience store and Jim followed Yop down to the lake. When the urge overtook Yop, which was often, he turned abruptly on the sidewalk and told Jim what was on his mind. “No more offending them,” he said, the first time he swung around, stopping Jim in his tracks. “Be sure to go back there and tell them that, Jim, that Chris Yop is no longer in the building to offend them with his presence. And I will never return. How pleased they’ll be, I’m sure. Karen Woo. And that fucking Marcia.”

“Why single me out?” asked Marcia. “What I ever do?”

“He’s obviously unhinged,” said Benny. “I wouldn’t take it personally.”

Given the chance, Jim would have responded by saying he didn’t think anybody was offended that Chris was still in the building, just a little unsure why, given that Lynn Mason had let him go two days earlier. But it was clear that Yop wasn’t soliciting replies. He turned quickly and walked on, leaving Jim to catch up. Holding the chair’s backrest before him prevented Jim from seeing the ground and he almost tripped over an irregularity in the sidewalk. The next time Yop turned, it was just as abruptly, and Jim recoiled a little. “Thank god, Jim, thank god for the love of a devoted woman.” Jim thought Yop might try to stab him in the eye with his pointing finger. “It’s the only thing that’s worth a damn. Without Terry,” he concluded, “this whole world would be for shit.”

He turned and marched on. The wheels of his suitcase drummed the sidewalk partitions at regular intervals. He turned a third time, but only to say, “Your so-called friends. What a joke.” Jim anticipated more, but Yop, smiling humorlessly and shaking his head slowly, said nothing. He paused long enough for Jim to reply — it almost seemed he wanted him to — but Jim was at a loss for words. When Yop turned back again he let out a smirking, hostile laugh. Two blocks from the lake, they were caught at a red light and had to stand next to each other as the traffic moved past. “Not even to catch up,” said Yop, turning to him. “You hear that? Be sure you tell them that. Not even to catch up. ” “Catch up?” said Jim. “What do you mean, not even to catch up?” “Not that they would care if I keeled over tomorrow,” he added.

“Oh my god, so I tore up his resume and threw it in his face,” said Marcia. “It doesn’t mean I want the man to die.”

“I don’t know,” said Benny, “maybe we should have just e-mailed him.”

At that time of day, the promenade alongside Lake Michigan was fairly empty. Most people didn’t make it all the way down to the southern terminus anyway, where the land doglegged out into the water and the promenade ended at a little beach. Despite the lingering chill, there was plenty of sunlight, and in the distance to their right a few robust bathers were lending the lake its first signs of summer life. Otherwise, it was just Jim and Yop and the occasional elderly speed-walker. Yop brought the suitcase to rest just behind the breaker, unzipped it and took two of the chair wheels from inside, climbed over the breaker, and approached the water. Just as he wound back, a great May wind rose up. Yop flung the first of the wheels into Lake Michigan while his tie fluttered in the opposite direction. On his return to the suitcase the tie was still flung over one shoulder. “You guys think I wanted to cry?” he asked Jim. “I wasn’t crying for me,” he said. “I was crying for Terry. I was crying for Terry and me.” By that point, Jim knew not to respond. He watched as Yop tossed the remainder of the wheels and the armrests out into the water. The armrests floated, as did the webbed seat and backrest — which Yop tossed out Frisbee-style, brown paper and all — but the silver pole sank quickly. He stood over the water shaking the suitcase upside down. Every nut and bolt plopped down into the lake. Then he zipped up the suitcase and returned to where Jim had stood watching him, just on the other side of the breaker. He lifted the suitcase and climbed over the breaker one leg at a time and set the wheels of the suitcase back on the ground and began to walk away, but then stopped and turned back to address Jim. “I would thank you for your help, Jim,” he said, “but I’ve always considered you an idiot.”

Yop’s final remark to Jim Jackers sent Marcia over the edge. She burrowed into her seat, squirming herself into a ball of shame and regret, and cried, “Please tell me he did not!” She vowed never to be mean to Jim again. She vowed never to be mean to anyone again. “How could he say that to him?” she asked. “You said it to him just the other day,” said Benny. “But how could he say it and mean it?” she asked. Marcia was the rare one among us who used the occasion of other people’s cruelty to be reminded of her own, and to feel bad about both. She made a vow like the one she now made to Benny — never to be mean again — every two or three weeks, until something Jim said or did had her sniping again, telling him to shut up and leave her office. What was refreshing about Marcia was that she said these things to his face, but unlike Yop, they weren’t eternal damnations. They were just momentary expressions of her exasperation — things we wanted to say, but we lacked the courage — and they always resulted in mad fits of compunction.

“Jim didn’t seem all that upset about it, believe it or not,” Benny assured her. “He just wanted to know if I thought he was an idiot.”

“And you said no, right?” said Marcia. “Benny, tell me you didn’t dance around that one.”

“I told him of course he was an idiot,” Benny said. “I had to, Marcia. If I had told him he wasn’t an idiot, he would have known I thought he was one.”

“This place is so fucked up,” she said.

We were outraged for Jim, too. The poor guy had gone to great lengths to help Yop seek his revenge against the office coordinator and her system of serial numbers, and then he was left with an insult. We rallied to Jim’s side. We told him not to sweat that remark. Then we tried to understand what Yop could possibly have against us. Why was he directing all his outrage toward us, we asked Jim, when, having dismantled Tom Mota’s chair and having tossed it into the lake, the object of his bitterness was so obviously one specific person, i.e., the office coordinator? Jim didn’t know, except to say that Yop was hurt that we hadn’t e-mailed him with instructions about the changes to the project. But just what was he planning to do once he got those instructions? Salvage his job? We felt maligned.

“At least I understand Tom Mota,” Marcia told Benny. “Tom’s just full of frustration for how his life turned out. But Chris Yop? Chris Yop I just don’t get.”

In the end we had to understand that of course Yop would hate us. We were still employed, and he wasn’t. He was working on out-of-date fund-raiser ads while we knew the project had changed. We had been together at the coffee bar, and he was on the outs.

“But Chris Yop wasn’t what I came in here for, was it?” said Marcia.

“I don’t think so,” said Benny.

“What was it?” she asked herself. “Why’d I stop by?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, intrigued, hopeful.

“Oh my god,” she said out of the blue. “Can you believe it’s only three-fifteen?”

SOME DAYS FELT LONGER than other days. Some days felt like two whole days. Unfortunately those days were never weekend days. Our Saturdays and Sundays passed in half the time of a normal workday. In other words, some weeks it felt like we worked ten straight days and had only one day off. We could hardly complain. Time was being added to our lives. But then it wasn’t easy to rejoice, exactly, realizing that time just wasn’t moving fast enough. We had any number of clocks surrounding us, and every one of them at one time or another exhibited a lively sense of humor. We found ourselves wanting to hurry time along, which was not in the long run good for our health. Everybody was trapped in this contradiction but nobody ever dared to articulate it. They just said, “Can you believe it’s only three-fifteen?”