Joshua Ferris - Then We Came to the End

They gave her a half hour in which to collect her personal items. It was part of a new protocol for the physical removal of former employees that Roland had to stand against the wall with his hands folded, mutely watching her pack. They were treating Marcia like an inmate at the Joliet Correctional Center. Perhaps it had to be that way after Tom’s arrest, but the only dangerous thing about Marcia was her glower. Did he really have to just stand there like that, as if vigilant against sudden movement? We’d seen firsthand how the man handled a crisis. If Marcia decided suddenly to brandish a stapler in a half-threatening manner, he’d fumble with his Motorola and forget his name. The least he could do was offer to help. Failing that, he could take a seat and relax.

Marcia picked her way across the desk, the credenza, and the bookshelves, removing a clock, a figurine, a cluster of books. She unplugged her radio and wound the cord around its brown plastic body and placed it in a box. Then she went through the desk drawers one redundant item at a time, investigating every matchbook, business card, hairband, Band-Aid, aspirin container, lotion bottle, bendy straw, multivitamin, magazine, nail file, nail polish, lip balm, and cough drop that had languished in her desk for who knows how long. Did it belong in a box or in the trash? She unpinned from her corkboard a collage of photographs, receipts, coupons, utility bills, personal reminders, wisdom quotes, greeting cards, ticket stubs, and drawings in her hand and in the hands of professional artists she admired, and those, too, she either threw away or put into a box. Marcia’s office reverted back to the anonymous — nothing on the desk but a computer and telephone, the walls blank, the divot-ridden corkboard bereft of all sign of her two thousand days among us. It was a swift and stultifying transformation, depressing to watch.

Genevieve Latko-Devine arrived in her doorway looking ashen and out of breath. “I just heard,” she said.

“Roland, you’re annoying me,” said Benny. “Do you really have to stand against the wall like that?”

“Sorry, Benny. It’s part of the new rules.”

The mood in the office was solemn and wistful until Jim Jackers showed up and asked Marcia if she was planning to return dressed as a clown to terrorize us all with a paintball gun. Any other day, Marcia would have shut him up with a quick put-down, but his inappropriateness could no longer touch her. What clung to us because of Jim no longer clung to her.

“I have been a total bitch for a year now,” she said, taking a seat for the last time in Ernie Kessler’s chair. “I hated everybody, you know why? Because I thought no way they deserved to stay on if I was going to be laid off. But all that time, I didn’t get laid off. I only got laid off today. I was thinking ahead, and hating everybody for it. Now I can finally stop being a bitch. You know how good that makes me feel? Why didn’t they do this a year ago?” she asked.

This was one of several possible responses — the silver-lining response. Marcia had found a spin clever enough to carry her out of the building with her head up. We had no desire to expose it for what it was, and so we all agreed it was a good thing that she could finally stop being a bitch. If Amber had been there, there would have been tears.

“Do you know that since layoffs began,” she continued, “I haven’t been able to enjoy a single cup of coffee at the coffee bar? I was always too worried someone might come along and see me and think I should be working and not at the coffee bar enjoying a cup of coffee. I can enjoy coffee again,” she said.

Not enjoying your coffee at the coffee bar was far better than no coffee bar at all. Twenty minutes earlier, Marcia herself would have said the same thing. Now a great distance had grown between us. She had fallen into the dark abyss, while the rest of us still stood at the brink, watching her plummet. Soon we would lose sight of her completely. It was tough to behold, but there she was — no longer one of us. An era was coming to an end. The era of browbeating, sarcasm, belittlement, and berating. The era of bad ballads from eighties hair bands issuing from her office. The era of conscience-riddled insults followed by profuse apologies to anyone but the insulted. We would not have Marcia’s new haircut to look forward to anymore. To be honest, we had already grown pretty much accustomed to it.

“Can I take these boxes home for you in my car?” asked Genevieve. “I’d be happy to drop them off.” We didn’t think Genevieve had a clue what she was asking. Genevieve lived in a gorgeous loft in Lincoln Park with her lawyer husband. Did she know how far Bridgeport was? Was she even aware there was a South Side?

“Why you?” Benny said to Marcia. “What bullshit. Why not Jim here?”

“Hey!” said Jim.

“Do you remember last week,” Marcia continued, with a conviction that would have impressed the biggest cynic, “when I ran into Chris Yop at the print station? And do you remember how worked up I was over having Tom Mota’s chair, with the wrong serial numbers? You guys told me to go in and replace Tom’s chair with Yop’s chair, that used to be Ernie’s chair, remember? Because it would be better to be caught with Ernie’s chair than to be caught with Tom’s? Do you remember that?” she asked. “Do you realize how insane we’ve all become?”

She got off the chair and stood before the partially filled boxes on her desk with her hands on her hips, wrists turned inward. She looked around a final time at what remained to be done and found there was nothing. “Wow,” she said.

“Are you ready?” asked Roland.

She didn’t even look at him. She didn’t look at us, either. She looked through us, to the dusty surfaces where her things had been, to the barren walls between which for six straight years she had completed the work that had earned her a living. Was this it, then? Was there to be no ceremony, beyond Roland’s aid out the door?

“I’ll help you down with those boxes,” said Benny.

“You know what?” she said. “Hold on.” She opened them up again and peered inside each one for a full minute or two. “I don’t want any of this shit,” she concluded at last. “Will you look at this? What is this?” She pulled out a cheap die-cast statuette of Lady Liberty. Next she held up a small book entitled 50 Tips for the Direct-Mail Marketer. “Roland,” she said, “can you just have these boxes thrown out for me?”

“Wait a minute, hold on,” said Benny.

“You don’t want your stuff?” said Roland.

“Marcia,” said Genevieve.

“It’s called useless shit, Roland,” said Benny. “And of course she wants it.”

It was madness to leave without your useless shit. You came in with it, you left with it — that was how it worked. What would you use to clutter a new office with if not your useless shit? We could remember Old Brizz with his box of useless shit, shifting the box from arm to arm as he talked with the building guy. Of course, Old Brizz never had an office again. His useless shit really was useless. He had cause to leave his useless shit behind. But his was a rare case. All things considered, it was better to take your useless shit with you.

“Marcia, take it with you,” said Benny.

“I’m happy to drive it over to your house tonight,” said Genevieve.

“But I don’t want any of it,” said Marcia.

It was how we knew to feel sorry for them. Before their terminations, we knew them by their tics, their whines, their crap superiorities, and just one day earlier, we thought that if all that were to disappear suddenly, so much the better. Then we saw them carrying a box full of useless shit to the elevator, and they were pitiable and human again.