Bent, Not Broken-A Modern Romance

- Title Page

- CHAPTER I

- CHAPTER II

Bent, Not Broken

A Modern Romance

By William R. Potter

Copyright © 2011 by William R. Potter

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

SMASHWORDS EDITION

CHAPTER I

Dwayne Johnson recognized early in life that he was different. Over his thirty-five years, individuals had gone to great lengths to make sure he knew he was weird, creepy, queer, and not right in the head. As a child, the kids called him retard, and at work he was Duh-Wayne. High school was no different as his senior class voted him most likely to lapse into madness and murder his parents.

He stood in the kitchen of his apartment, sipping tea, staring at the calendar that hung on the same nail as the clock on the wall. He knew that the clock was in the absolute center of the wall panel. It was three feet from the front door and also three feet from the bathroom door; furthermore, it was four feet from the floor and four feet from the ceiling. He was certain of these dimensions; however, he wouldn’t hesitate to measure again and again.

On the calendar was a glossy black star on the eighteenth of November. It wasn’t to remind him of his father’s birthday; his dad had long ago estranged himself from his only son. The day was the second anniversary of the day that Leah Flanagan broke up with him. Throughout the calendar were thirty-seven such stickers; most were black and a few were gold and each indicated some event either pleasant or not.

He set his mug on the kitchen counter; and he knew that the mug was nineteen inches from the refrigerator, nineteen from the sink, eleven from the backsplash, and eleven more from falling to the floor. He washed his hands for exactly one hundred and nineteen seconds and ran a hand through his hair for the third time.

His wallet was in his right front pocket; garage door clicker in the front left, car keys in one hand, and lunch box in the other. He made a quick turn to survey his apartment and opened the door to the hall. The clock told him it was 8:01 AM. He was running on schedule. He made sure that the stove elements were off, the kettle was unplugged, and checked all these items three times before he felt confident enough to leave his home.

From his apartment to the elevator were thirty-three steps. Over the same distance seven light fixtures and only five electrical outlets were on the walls. He saw a dark trail of liquid coffee leading from suite 309 that had most likely leaked from a garbage bag when somebody dragged it to the lift. The line was new and Dwayne took a moment to assess it and decided that it was longer than a meter and not quite five feet. “Fifty-five and a half inches,” he whispered and nodded.

Dwayne couldn’t ride any elevator without imagining it breaking loose and achieving terminal velocity before crashing to the basement. This horrendous plunge would not occur as long as he was on the lift for no more than one minute and fifty-nine seconds. Any longer was insanely dangerous.

He sat at the wheel of his Toyota Corolla and made sure the seat was properly adjusted and both side mirrors were also set. After overcoming the urge to check the fluid levels for the fifth time that week, he started the engine. He reached into his blazer and pulled out a flask, uncapped, and took a long swallow. The clear odorless liquid warmed his mouth and all the way down his throat. Two more long gulps would calm his nerves enough to have him on his way.

Dwayne talked his way through the morning commute. “Drive and drive—thirty-one MPH. Turn right at the lights, signal, break, and turn and turn. Now accelerate to the speed limit. Drive and drive.”

This went on for the entire twenty-nine minutes of the journey. “At the next stop light,” he whispered, “look left for the girl in the dark raincoat.”

Sitting at the bus stop was a woman reading a tattered paperback. She was in her late twenties, and Dwayne had first noticed her several weeks earlier. He glanced at her, looked away, and then looked again. He began to feel nervous, and he felt his face flush.

Ten seconds to green.

Then the woman looked up and grinned. She gave him the I-see-you-looking-at-me smile, proving to Dwayne that she recognized him from previous days. He believed that she thought of him as White-Car Boy. She, of course, was Black-Coat Girl.

The light turned green, and the moment ended.

At the next light, he reached and opened a small notebook. Black-Coat Girl was at the stop four times a week now, up from the previous three. Of those four sightings, she had looked up from her book only twice that week, down from the four of the previous week.

Despite the gold hoop ring in her lip and the twin spikes through her left eyebrow, he had feelings for Black-Coat Girl. She was one of the few things on which Dwayne could depend. Even though he did not know her, not even her real name, he felt like he could love her. He daydreamed about a life with her. She would accept his stuff and teach him all kinds of things about piercings and tattoos. The harshness of her appearance hid the kind gentleness inside. She was a good person who wouldn’t harm him emotionally or otherwise. He decided that most people she knew misunderstood her.

Dwayne made sure that he did not enter the main entrance of his work office until exactly eight thirty-three each morning. He didn’t begin work until nine and couldn’t punch in until then. He arrived early to check that his coworkers hadn’t completely destroyed his cubicle. Rodger Babcock, Mike Shannon, and Danny Wallace, “the Gang of Three” as Dwayne called them, took great pride in screwing with his head.

Dwayne knew that his personal belongings had suffered yet another ambush. It could be a subtle rearrangement of something on his desk or the entire room could be messed with. At first glance, nothing seemed out of place, so he began to count the pens in the glass jar that sat nine inches to the left of the computer monitor.

Six! He counted six pens. To the right of the monitor was an identical jar with pencils—also six. There should be five or even seven pens, and as many pencils. There should never be six! He counted each jar for the second time and then a third, and the count remained six. He took a long breath and glanced back and forth between the jars. He remembered the bottom drawer of his desk had boxes of writing instruments, and he quickly yanked the drawer open.

None! The boxes were gone. Dwayne’s heart began to pound. He looked at the jars, still twelve writing implements in total. He heard giggling from across the office floor.

“Don’t panic,” he whispered.

Dwayne took one of the pens and dropped it in the wastebasket next to his desk. Then he removed a pencil. He hesitated to add the pencil to the trash, as two together would not do. He stood and walked to the cubicle on the far wall, looked over, and noticed that Gabrielle Martinez was not yet at her desk. Dwayne tossed the pencil and smiled when it landed on the floor near Gabrielle’s chair. Crisis averted, he sighed and sat at his desk.

Just to make sure, he counted the jars’ contents and was pleased to count five of each. He turned on the monitor and tried to move the mouse to jolt the PC from sleep mode. The mouse would not move without considerable force. He pulled and then turned the mouse over and noticed that the bottom of the mouse was coated with peanut butter.

“Damn it!” He was deathly allergic to the beige goop.

Dwayne then pulled out the tray from just below his desktop and stared at the keyboard. All the odd number keys were missing. He struggled each time he used a computer, bothered to no end by those even-numbered keys. The equal balance of even to odd keys was the only thing that allowed him to function and do his job. He was extremely perturbed by the empty square slots where 1, 3, 5, etc., should sit.

“Oh, Dwayne! Not again?” Leah Flanagan said when she arrived at his cubicle with the day’s floppy disk. It was Leah Masterson now as she had married the office owner only six months after breaking up with Dwayne.

“I—uh, um . . .”

“I’ll be back in a minute,” she said, as she turned and walked away. He heard her shoes clop-clop on the floor. Those long legs and wonderful feet were once his and his alone—well, for three months at least.

Minutes later, Leah’s heels could be heard signalling her return to his desk. Dwayne heard laughter first as Leah passed Rodger’s desk and even louder from the direction of Mike and Daniel’s. Dwayne was the joke of the office, just as he was in college, and everywhere else for that matter.

He took a long swallow from the flask in his pocket and smiled as the liquid warmed his body. After another sip, he hid his medicine, as he called it.

Leah appeared with a new keyboard and mouse and a roll of paper towels. Dwayne took the computer hardware and began to unplug the damaged equipment, as Leah wiped the peanut butter mess from the desk. After Leah finished, Dwayne hosed everything down with cleaner and then wiped and rubbed until he was satisfied that his work area was unsoiled. In the bathroom, he turned his efforts to making sure that his hands had no signs of filth, and he wouldn’t return to his desk until he was thoroughly sanitized.

At his desk, Dwayne slipped the 3.5-inch floppy disk into the drive and punched up the day’s files. It contained the phone numbers of ninety-one potential customers. His job was to call each person on the list, the mark, and ask five questions. Today, the topic was about coffee and what chain the person preferred, if Tim Horton’s or Starbucks. At the end of the survey, the mark is offered a package of coupons. All the marks had to do was give their home address or e-mail. The name and addresses were sold to companies that then sent dozens of coupon packages for different products.

The other phone marketing staff received disks with eighty numbers. Leah always made sure that he had a disk with ninety-one because if he was given a batch of eighty he would only do seventy-nine.

Eighty calls was considered a good day’s work; however, Dwayne was the only caller who had beaten the ninety-call plateau, and he did that routinely. His one-day best was also the office record and still stood at one hundred and eleven calls. Even the afternoon shift callers couldn’t match his scores.

He still remembered the day he set the record. Bill Masterson, the boss, stopped everyone and announced the accomplishment. Bill took Dwayne’s photo and made an employee-of-the-month diploma that still hung on a wall of the call floor. Dwayne received a certificate for a free meal at a nice steak house. He of course took Leah, back at a time when she was open to such things.

He realized that he was getting a late start on his list and quickly dialled the first number and began the survey. He successfully got the required information and entered the digits on the phone pad to begin his next call.

Staff members stopped for a ten o’clock break. Dwayne made calls. Smokers stepped out to light up. He queried old men and housewives about whether they preferred lattés to cappuccinos. He was mediocre at best at most of life’s pursuits; however, at work on the phones he was unmatched.

Soon it was lunch break, and he only stopped for a minute to open his lunch box and take three bites of his jam sandwich. When he decided no one was looking, he took a swig from his flask.

“Hey, no slacking off in there, OC,” Danny Wallace said, as he passed Dwayne’s cubicle.

Dwayne was startled at Wallace’s voice and spilled a few drops of vodka on his slacks. He used a liberal amount of jelled hand sanitizer on his hands and then made another call.

Danny wouldn’t finish his list and around four o’clock would be bugging Dwayne to take some of his work. Dwayne told himself that he would not help complete Wallace’s list although he knew that he couldn’t resist a chance to break a hundred.

It was one thirty-one; he stood and stepped back from his desk, crossed his cube, entered the hall, and counted the one hundred thirty-seven steps to the lunchroom.

At the door, he paused to appraise the room for coworkers. He saw only one and he smiled. Leah was bent over washing the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. Dwayne wondered why women didn’t just kneel instead of leaning over with their butts sticking out. He enjoyed the view for a few seconds and tried to figure out how to announce his presence without startling her.

She continued to clean, and then she knelt as she turned to face him. “Hello, Dwayne.” She stood and closed her sweater as if she was worried that he might take a peek at her cleavage. He remembered a time when she allowed him to see and touch anything he wanted. While glancing at the wedding ring on her finger he wondered what Bill thought of his new wife remaining friends with her ex at work.

“Hi.”

“That time again?”

“Uh-huh.” He nodded. “Is everyone doing okay?”

“Yes, I don’t think you’ll have any extra today.”

“Oh?”

“Almost eighty percent of the calls are getting results today,” she said, as she filled with water and then plugged in the kettle.

“Wow, Bill must be happy.”

“I doubt that,” she said at a barely audible level.

“Pardon?”

“Oh, nothing.” She set three mugs on the counter, added teabags to two, and then hot water when the kettle whistled. The third cup was for him because she knew him so well.

He wondered if Black-Coat Girl would ever know him in that way.

Dwayne remembered all those conversations where Leah had told him over and over to get help with his—problem. He never did, and her concern for him caused her to leave him. He washed his hands—this time with extra soap.

Now their only time together was the one-thirty tea. And that was becoming a rare occurrence of late. He carried his cup to a table and wiped the chair and counter with a wet paper towel.

Leah sat across from him with a worried look on her face. He knew that look. Something was very wrong. Dwayne thought that he should ask her if something was troubling her. Instead he studied the number of chairs and remained silent.

He sipped his tea and then he removed the bag from his mug, stood, and tossed the bag in the nearest trashcan. Leah joined him in standing, forced a smile, and then said something about some unfinished work that needed her attention. She left him there with the two tables and eight chairs.

Dwayne glanced at the wall clock and smiled when he saw that it was one thirty-nine. He reached one hundred and thirty-eight steps at his cubicle and took one more to feel comfortable.

At his desk, he took a deep breath to cope with the thought of what he might find. Rodger and the others hardly ever did anything to his office during the day, especially if they were falling behind with their lists. Everything appeared to be in order when he made a quick check.

The third drawer of his desk contained a notebook, and he opened it on his desk. He flipped to a fresh page and jotted down a few lines describing the mess he found that morning. On the previous page was a note about the saliva that was deposited with mucus on his keyboard the day before. Spitting on his things was a favorite prank of the three of them. They kept themselves amused at his expense, and Leah had the chore of cleaning up and keeping the boss from learning of the pranks. Not that her husband would do anything about the problem. Terminating three of his staff would cripple the operation.

Dwayne shivered when he remembered some of the disgusting things that the Gang of Three had inflicted. He shook his head and squeezed out a palm full of hand cleaner and rubbed his hands together until all the liquid was used. By three fifteen, his list was completed and he checked over his results on the screen and saw that he had achieved the 75-percent-success quota. It had been a good day after all, just as he had suspected. He smiled.

He burned all the info to CD, removed the disk, and with the floppy, made his way to Bill Masterson’s office. He paused outside the door when he heard Bill and a female voice laughing. As he raised his hand to knock on the door, it opened and he retreated to allow Rachael Creed to exit Masterson’s office.

Rachael was twenty-one and extremely attractive. Leah was not happy when Bill hired Rachael as his new secretary. Dwayne watched Creed walk away, and as she did so, she stopped to fasten a button on her blouse.

“Come on in, Johnson.” Masterson had a deep low voice that demanded and received respect.

Dwayne slowly entered the office. He didn’t like being in the room at all. Not because Masterson made him nervous—he did. It was the layout. Everything was cluttered to the north side of the office where the south side was nearly empty.

The room was a minefield for Dwayne with four chairs and two clocks and two stuffed fish on the walls with those four glassy eyes starring at him. Six bookshelves, each with four shelves, and Bill’s desk was messy and jammed with papers; and Dwayne almost gagged—dirty dishes left over from lunch.

“Problem, Dwayne?”

“All good, sir.”

“Leah. Something is bothering her. Any ideas there, chief?”

“Ah . . . um—” Dwayne noticed that a pair of Bill’s pants were piled on the floor near the corner of the room. One shoe was upside down on the pile of slacks. The other loafer was out of view. Dwayne couldn’t be sure if his boss was wearing trousers as he was still seated.

“Leah is on me about going to the opera again. Johnson—Dwayne buddy, do me a solid and take her for me.”

“Pardon?” As if the room wasn’t bad enough. Now this. He was beginning to lose his breath.

“Rachael got me a pair of tickets for tomorrow night. Some Christmas thing. You game?”

“Ah, sure . . . why not?” He had no interest in going to the opera; however, another minute in that room and he would vomit for sure.

“Great. Always good to know I can count on you, Dwayne.” Masterson opened a drawer in his desk, removed an envelope, and then handed it to Dwayne. “Take her for dinner as well, okay?”

He nodded and noticed that Masterson was wearing short pants.

“Great work today, Johnson, as always.”

Dwayne couldn’t breathe, let alone answer. He nodded, turned, and exited the room. Moving so quickly and without thought, he almost knocked Rachael Creed over and spilled the dual cups of coffee she was carrying.

“Damn it, Dwayne, be careful!” She made eye contact with him. There was purpose in those blue eyes; he was certain that she was trying to tell him something with her glare.

“I . . . um . . . am sorry.”

Dwayne walked by the cubicles of the other call staff; he noticed that Mike and Rodger were still working their call lists. Rodger glared at Dwayne and Mike made a rude hand gesture. Daniel sounded like he was rushing through the questions, in a hurry to finish the allocation that Bill expected from each team member. Haste never helped make the quota nor did it do anything for achieving a successful contact.

He smiled and whispered good-bye.

After powering down his PC, counting everything on his desk, dropping the floppy in a bin outside Leah’s office, and washing his hands, he left the building.

Three hundred and twenty-seven was the number of days in a row that he had made seventy-seventy-five. Seventy calls with 75 percent of the marks giving up the goods.

Walking to his car, he knew that there were twenty-one parking spots before he reached his Corolla. He made three circles around the car to make sure it had not received any tampering.

Once inside, he fiddled with the seat and mirror adjustments, inhaled a long breath and began his drive for home. “Turn left at the lights, signal, break, and turn—and turn. Now accelerate to speed. Drive and drive.”

He drove by the bus stop and as always, looked for Black-Coat Girl. Dwayne wondered about her day and if she ever thought about him. He decided that she did and this made him happy.

After waiting his turn behind two of his neighbor’s cars at the automatic gate at the parking level of his building, he maneuvered the Toyota to his designated stall.

Dwayne put a hand inside his jacket and touched the envelope with the opera tickets. Black-Coat Girl wouldn’t take pleasure in the show; however, if invited, she would be a good sport and play along. She would enjoy the dinner before, engaging him in intelligent conversation about her European backpacking trip from her high school grad year. Her face would light up as she speaks of London, Paris, and of course, Venice.

“You’ll come with me, Dwayne, to Venice, won’t you?”

“Well yes, of course.” Dwayne saw his neighbor Mrs. Feldspar looking at him as he conversed with himself. The woman stared like it was the craziest thing she had ever witnessed.

He walked around the Toyota for a second time, knowing that he could not leave the bird dropping on the roof of the vehicle overnight. He popped the trunk and removed a bottle of spray cleaner and a rag and went to work on the mess. He dared not look at the gunk, as he knew it would turn his stomach.

Satisfied that his paintwork was no longer fouled, he made his way to the elevator and rode to his floor, holding his breath the entire way. Outside the lift door, he noticed that the maintenance people had attempted to clean the coffee stain from the morning. He could still see the blemish in a few areas and that bothered him. There was no possibility that he would be able to last the evening without working the carpet until it was immaculate.

CHAPTER II

No more than five seconds had passed after he entered his apartment when he began to wash his hands. He plugged in the kettle and readied a teacup and bag. A vision of his car roof and the half-dried drop of bird feces began to weigh heavily on his mind, returning him to his sink for another wash. He scrubbed at his fingers and under each nail until his skin was pink.

When he was happy that his hands would rival any surgeon’s level of hygiene, he unplugged the whistling kettle and poured his mug full. He wiped the counter three times even though it was spotless and then sat at his kitchen table, sipping tea.

Dwayne’s mind wandered to Black-Coat Girl. Part of him was certain that she was never aware of him staring at her each morning at 8:37 AM. If she did notice, she probably thought that he was some leering freak. Still, he fantasized that she did more than just notice. Right now, he decided she was in the bathtub, trying desperately to rid herself of the disapproving, judging glances from her day, and dreaming of the kind face from the white imported sedan. She hoped that by some strange coincidence he would stop and ask if she would like a ride. That was why she smiled at him like she did. It was her way of inviting him to talk to her.

Dwayne could not take the chance that Black-Coat Girl would laugh at him. He was happy enough to see her almost every morning. Dreaming about her was much easier and safer than meeting her. It would have to do.

Taking his seat at the kitchen table, he reached and pulled the morning paper across the counter into view. The cover of the paper was never a good place to start, and so he opened the rag to page A2. The second page was a gold mine for Dwayne’s counting game. It contained the contents, contact us and a strange number puzzle called Conceptis Sudoku. He found, circled, and counted every three on the page and smiled with delight when the tally came to thirty-seven.

Dwayne had no need for television, the Internet, or even radio when he could add up all the examples of his favorite digit. The third and fourth pages were disappointments; however, the fifth was promising with a full-page ad for backyard hot tubs. After the three count only went to seven, he quickly switched to nines. Eighteen nines were pretty good he thought; however, he never fully trusted a figure that looked so much like a six. A measure of sevens on the same page ended at a dozen, when the phone rang. He waited until the fifth ring and then answered.

“Dwayne?”

“Leah?”

“Yes, it’s me.” Leah sounded nervous on the line, and Dwayne wondered why she was calling him at home.

Leah didn’t spend any time on pleasantries, and this began to worry him. He glanced at the newspaper page, anxious to rejoin the count and hopefully find at least one more seven.

“Bill just told me about his little plan for tomorrow and I was a bit cross with him. He shouldn’t have imposed on you like that.”

“It’s really no problem. I’m sure it will be fun.” He had forgotten about the opera night.

The line was silent for a few seconds before Leah spoke. “I’m sure it would be—it’s just that . . .”

“Is there something wrong?” Was Leah suddenly ashamed to be out with him? He began to feel uncomfortable with the conversation.

“No, not with you. It’s just not . . . appropriate for a married woman to be out on a date-type evening with her former boyfriend.”

“Oh?”

“You understand, don’t you?”

“Well sure. I guess.” He tried to concentrate on what Leah had just told him; however, the count was twelve and twelve has a two in it.

He tried to shake the sevens from his mind.

“Okay, Dwayne, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He thought about his conversation with Leah and then decided not to dwell on it. The count of sevens continued and tallied at fifteen. The numbers came slowly until he hit the jackpot pages of the vehicles ads. After half an hour of the bounty that was the automotive section, Dwayne was ready for bed. First, he cut a page from the paper and set it aside. It was a BMW dealership advertisement, and it featured thirty-one threes and thirty-one was good enough for the book. In a drawer was a scrapbook, and Dwayne took care to paste the Beamer ad on a page of its own.

He showered, brushed his teeth, washed his hands, relieved himself, and then gave the hands another scrubbing. He chose the light blue pajamas and crawled under the covers.

Next to the bed on the night table was an empty 5X7 photo frame. He pretended that it was a picture of Black-Coat Girl. He smiled at her, blew a kiss, and said good night.

The next morning, Dwayne awoke feeling good about the day. In his mind’s eye was the smiling face of his bus stop beauty. Dreaming of her always made him happy. She was heading to another day at her job where her colleagues admired her and her employer appreciated her talents.

He would call nearly a hundred people, interrupting their busy day to pester them with stupid questions about cornflakes or underarm deodorant. This rewarding work would only occur after he survived yet another humiliating prank by the Gang of Three.

Half an hour later, he was in the Corolla and only seconds from the intersection where she would be waiting for the bus. The light went yellow, and he slowed, until the light turned red. He stared at the empty bench, and he felt his heart sink in his chest. He knew the direction from where she walked and he scanned the sidewalk, seeing only a teenage guy and an old woman. Disappointment filled him with a sense of heaviness.

Perhaps the light rain that was falling had caused her to take a taxi to work. She often was not out in bad weather, and there were a few flakes in the drizzle.

Then he saw her, walking from the convenience store with a take-out coffee cup. She took a sip, and then she looked up and checked the street. Was she looking for him?

She saw him and stopped walking, tilted her head slightly, smiled, and then waved to him. She didn’t just wave to him, did she?

Dwayne couldn’t believe what had just occurred. He felt his hand rise slowly and wave as his heart jumped from normal speed to a gallop. She pointed up and toward the intersection and he wasn’t sure why.

Then a horn sounded behind him. The light was green. Black-Coat Girl smiled again, shrugged her shoulders, and then waved good-bye. He just stared at her.

The horn was long and irritated.

Her face turned into a look of amusement, and she began to giggle. She shook her head vaguely and mouthed the words bye-bye. Her breath made a cloud of steam in the cold morning air.

Dwayne had timed intersections all over town. He memorized the red times of many of the cities’ traffic lights. Some, with left-hand turns held traffic for over a minute. Hers was one of the quicker ones, remaining red for less than twenty seconds.

No matter how long the lights lasted, it was never long enough.

“Move it, ASSHOLE!” A bellowing angry voice said.

Dwayne drove for the office. His entire body felt invigorated and alive. There was no denying what had just happened with Black-Coat Girl. She was interacting with him and him alone. Certainly she thought he was crazy sitting at the light staring at her. However, she didn’t look away or appear uncomfortable with his gaze.

Previously she had given him smiles, made eye contact, and now she was waving. This person knew he existed. He could no longer dismiss these things as coincidental.

He parked his car and felt like he could fly to the office entrance. Anything was possible. He would make one hundred and thirteen contacts today, and he didn’t care what Rodger and the others had waiting for him.

“Go ahead and shit on my desk,” he whispered. “Bring it on!”

Dwayne made his way to his cubicle and checked his chair before sitting. He sat and powered up his PC. In the next cube, he could hear Leah and Tanya Costa talking. Costa was worried about a weather forecast that called for heavy snow by late morning. Leah didn’t believe it was cold enough for flakes to stick.

Three minutes later, Leah gave him his disk for the day and then she left the area without conversation. By ten that morning, he still had not found the hidden gift deposited by Rodger or the others. Occasionally the trick was nothing. They would take pleasure in his relentless searching for the item.

In the bottom drawer of his desk was a Tupperware jar full of jellybeans. He opened the drawer while he questioned an older woman about her favorite football team over the phone. Without looking, he reached his right hand, removed the jar lid, and scooped his fingers into the jar for beans. He felt lukewarm liquid and quickly pulled his hand away from the jar and held his fingers out to his side.

Urine!

He gagged. He stood abruptly, put his dry hand to his mouth, and heaved. Bolting from his cube, he almost fell in the hallway between the cubicles. Keeping his good hand to his face, he jogged for the bathroom. As he passed the other callers, he heard a male voice call out.

“Oh-oh. Johnson’s got a juicy one!”

Dwayne had no idea what Mike’s comment meant, and he was in no position to ask him. Dwayne slammed open the bathroom door and stood for seconds in indecision.

Wash up or vomit?

He ran the hot water and pumped a handful of pink soap from a dispenser next to the sink. He washed and washed again and continued until his hands and fingers were bright pink and scalded.

In his cubicle, tucked in a filing cabinet was a box of surgical gloves. He pulled on a pair, carefully lifted the offending jar, and then walked to the washroom.

After the mess was deposited, he ran the sink tap until it was hot again. Then he coated his hands in liquid soap and worked a brush from his cuticles to his elbows. It took more than twenty minutes of intense scouring for him to feel like he was ready to return to his desk.

He had lost ground and would really have to pick up his pace to have a record day. As he dialled and made call after call, he was vaguely aware of the office buzz.

Voices were chatting instead of calling, and he heard snippets of the conversations. Blizzard, one voice said. Another remarked that there was more than four inches already on the ground. He was skeptical. He peered across the call floor to the windows and saw what all the fuss was about.

Large fluffy snowflakes were falling at an alarming pace. He continued making calls. Few marks had time for surveys that afternoon. The storm had everyone agitated as they worried about the evening commute in a foot of snow.

His success rate was reaching a personal low. Still he made calls. By one o’clock, Dwayne was certain that less than half of his attempts were getting positive responses. On any other Friday afternoon, he would be flying through his list, quizzing marks, and collecting e-mail addresses.

His thoughts were of that morning at the intersection—that smile and those eyes, both so friendly and welcoming. He longed to hold her, to hear her voice, and to learn her real name.

Bill Masterson was trying to get the call floor’s attention. “Everyone,” Bill began. “I’ve checked the numbers and you guys just aren’t reaching your marks. So tally what you have, burn ’em, and then give your disks to Leah.”

“That’s it?” Danny asked. “You’re calling it?”

“Yeah, go home—and watch the roads. I want you all back tomorrow in one piece finishing these calls.”

The office became loud with voices conversing about the short day and the weather situation. The city was unfamiliar with snow, especially in the third week of November. Normally, this amount of accumulation doesn’t fall until January or later and so no one would have winter tires on their vehicles.

Outside the flakes swirled around him on a breeze. The snow on the ground didn’t crunch, as it was wet and already melting. The air smelled clean, and he looked up at the mass of giant tumbling snowflakes.

Dwayne sat in his car and started his engine. He watched Danny, Mike, and Rodger kneel and pick up handfuls of snow as soon as they exited the building. A second after chucking several balls at each other, they set their sights on Dwayne.

Dwayne reversed from his parking spot as the three men charged through the snow toward him. He shifted into gear and accelerated too quickly and his front wheels spun in the slush. He wasn’t moving. Snowballs began to slam his windshield and roof. He shifted into reverse and then drive and gained enough traction to pull away from the attack.

Dwayne knew what to do in the adverse conditions. He told himself to brake gently and to ease down on the gas pedal. He was fine.

At the intersection, he began to look for her. He knew the gesture was ridiculous, as he never saw her in the afternoon. He braked at the red light and came to a complete stop. Again, he looked at the bench and thought about taking a walk in the snow with her.

Without warning, Dwayne’s Corolla was slammed from behind.

The force of the impact jarred his teeth, and the air bag erupting from the steering column smacked his face. The Toyota was pushed forward and into the intersection. A red minivan driving through the green light was not able to avoid him and slid into his right front fender. Two more vehicles lost control and joined the fray.

Dwayne gripped the steering wheel so tight that his fingers throbbed. He looked around, not sure if he should get out or stay put in his seat. He remained in the car, listening to voices outside and his own pounding heart.

A man with glasses and a ball cap was at Dwayne’s door window, and he was shouting something.

“You okay?” The man’s face reddened as he yelled.

Dwayne wound down the window and looked at the guy.

“You okay?” The man said again.

“Yeah,” was all Dwayne could get out.

“I called 911. You sure you’re okay? You have some blood on your mouth.”

Dwayne put his hand to his lip and then looked at the red on his fingers. He instantly felt woozy. “Think so, sure.”

“Okay then, I’m gonna check on the others.”

Dwayne nodded. His jaw throbbed and his neck felt stiff.

“Goddamn snow, huh?” the man said before he turned away.

Dwayne nodded again. He looked over at the bus bench where he first saw her. One smile from her and he was hooked. In the distance he heard sirens, and every few seconds the wail sounded louder.

A shiver went through him, chattered his teeth, and lingered in his hands as a tremor. His door opened, and a woman with a toothy grin moved into the doorway. She said her name was Myra and that she was an EMT.

“What is your name, sir?”

Dwayne just stared at her. His jaw trembled with another shiver. Myra flashed a light in his eyes and asked him for his full name again.

“Dwayne Randolph Johnson.”

“Hello, Mr. Johnson. Looks like the old air bag caught you pretty good.” Myra asked him if he was in any pain.

Dwayne said no. Myra dabbed the blood on his lip and chin and then checked his pulse and blood pressure.

“Do you know what day it is, sir?”

“Friday. No no, it’s Thursday.”

“What is your birth date, Dwayne?”

“August 1, 1973.”

“What is your mother’s name?”

“My mother?” Dwayne had no idea what his mother had to do with a car accident.

“Yes. It’s a standard question.”

He nodded. “Joyce Johnson.”

Myra recommended that he go to the hospital to be fully checked out. She could take him in the ambulance. The doctor could start the forms for an insurance claim if Dwayne deemed it necessary.

“No. No ambulance. No doctors.” He shook his head and felt a twinge of pain in his neck. “I just want to go home.”

“All right then. You have a nice day,” Myra said and then she was gone.

The next happy face at his door was a twenty-something male. He introduced himself as a police constable. Dwayne didn’t catch his name.

The constable was asking questions about the accident and all Dwayne could think of was that this guy was way too young to be a cop. Young and not very big. The guy was smaller than Dwayne.

Dwayne described the collision as best as he could and received a business card with a file number from the constable. He was alone in his crippled car again.

Outside, a tow truck was working on the minivan still coupled to his front fender. The truck had a light bar on the cab roof with a bank of amber lights flashing. Dwayne watched the red and blue lights from the emergency vehicles streaking and flashing the white blanket of snow.

He was so cold. The minivan moved away on the tow truck’s hook. Would he ever be warm again? The third face to appear in his doorway was a loud large man with a shaggy beard. He smelled of coffee and sausages.

“You goin’ to the Docs, boss?”

He shook his head.

“Need a ride home?”

“Please.”

The bearded man called himself Ted, and he said he would be only a few minutes hooking Dwayne’s car.

“Okay then, shall we roll?” Ted said at Dwayne’s door.

Dwayne swung his legs to the street and quickly felt cold slush fill his shoes. When Dwayne stood, he felt dizzy, his head spun, and the pain in his jaw and neck increased.

“Hey, boss,” Ted placed his hand on Dwayne’s shoulder. “Might be a good idea to see a doctor.”

Dwayne shook his head and followed Ted to the passenger side of the tow truck. Once inside, Ted shifted into gear, made a U-turn in the intersection, accelerated to freeway speed, darted around traffic, and ran both yellow and red lights.

Dwayne thought he might need to vomit and that made him nervous. He closed his eyes and only opened them when a loud voice came over the two-way radio. Ted lowered the radio volume and continued his aggressive driving.

Dwayne signed an invoice and then fumbled with the cab door before he stepped from the truck. At the front entrance of his building, he unlocked the door, walked the thirty-five steps to the elevator, and pressed the call button. As he approached his apartment, he heard the phone ringing before he had his key in the lock; and when he entered his suite, he was welcomed by Leah’s voice over the answering machine.

Leah’s message concerned work, something about going in early tomorrow and staying late to make up for the shorter day. His head pounded so painfully that he ignored the call.

In the kitchen, he poured himself a tall glass of orange juice and then removed a bottle of rum from the cabinet. He topped off the glass and then stirred the concoction. Sitting at the table and sipping his drink, he hoped the alcohol might be enough to calm the pain that was taking over his body. Three more gulps and he had room for more rum.

Drinking like this always made him think of his father—a man who was never short of excuses to put back a few too many. Dwayne had slipped with booze before and ever since had promised himself that he wouldn’t allow it again.

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