Getting Away With It

Another existential office horror short story.

If you’re a man, you might not just be the contents of your wallet, but it helps. A deep dive into material excess. At least the greedmongers of the 1980s were honest about it. Show off that stack. The rap guys get it, tearing off chunks of that moldering corpse we call “the pie” and sticking it in our faces. Black kids who brought themselves up from nothing to get something get it. They understand. Hip hop is as American as apple pie, which wasn’t even invented here, but since when do we let details get in the way of a good story?

I saunter down the block, my unconscious brain taking over as copilot because I am out to lunch. I am making observations. Meth addicts mill outside the check-cashing place with the clinic on the second floor in what used to be a “nice neighborhood.” Next to it a mom n’ pop coffee shop that’s seen better days. I used to get croissants from the Lebanese couple who run it but I stopped because I got sick of wading through the throng of sallow-cheeked ghouls demanding I give them seventeen dollars and forty-six cents so they can take a bus and see their niece in Philadelphia. Apparently, lots of other people have stopped buying croissants as well because the sign is yet to be flipped: “CLOSED” in big orange letters on black, the “sorry we’re” in perfect middle-school cursive. I always liked the mix of formality and boldness. Closed at 7:00 a.m. on a Tuesday. Prime coffee and pastry time in this part of town. A farm-to-table gastropub lies across the street, remnant of the last wave of gentrification struggling to remain. It sits next to a beautiful old church nobody goes to. Next to that a Brazilian market with signs in Portuguese and bars in the window hawking services I can’t understand. Probably phone cards and money transfers. Show off that stack. Next to that, another check-cashing place and a used vinyl store where fifty-year old hipsters look for rare Sonic Youth. Add a strip joint and a poutine place and it’s Canada. 

Today is Tuesday and I feel on the verge of a horrible mistake. It’s hard to explain but it’s been brewing for a while.

I don’t work in an office, I work in a firm. We buy distressed assets and sell the pieces to cover debts and hopefully turn a profit. Carrion eaters feasting on broken dreams. Maybe our next meal will be the Lebanese coffee shop, though I don’t think they’re clients. If I dwell on specifics the magic is lost. 

There is a Very Important Call today with Everything On the Line. The pressure weighs as my nondescript firm comes into view amidst the nondescript environs. It’s actually plenty descript, color and movement and life in some form. I have just lost the ability to describe it. When I was grown I put away childish things, including that. I am better of for it, so I am told. 

Security guards smile as they wave me in, a young white guy with the physique of an iguana and a black guy old enough to have marched at Selma. Despite four years here I can’t remember their names. Faces I never forget but the labels applied to them elude me. I begin to wonder at the steps that led them to a life of screening office drones for deadly weapons, as if someone like me would know a gun from a spreadsheet. I then begin to wonder at the steps that brought me here, so I stop thinking. I bid them good morning and tip an imaginary hat. A stupid habit I saw in a movie once because no men I saw growing up wore hats, and no actual men taught me how to greet others. I guess it stuck. 

The elevator smells like artificial lemon, so close to the real thing I can almost see the undulating Mediterranean if I close my eyes. I don’t because I’ve been dreaming too much lately. Dreams of mundane things. Waking up, making coffee, kissing the wife, getting pulled over but having a laugh with the officer who lets me go with a warning when he realizes we were old high school chums. I keep my eyes open. I can’t afford any more distractions. Everything really is On the Line. 

Ding. Ninth floor. Kerri is there at the front desk. She spies me through the sleek glass door. A smile. She smiles at everyone but the gesture is appreciated. The electronic lock beeps in agreement with my ID, a technological handshake. I step in and here comes the boss. 

“Martin, office. Now.”

“Good morning to you too,” I say. 

“Don’t be so butthurt. Today is big. B-I-G.” 

He spells it for me like I haven’t had this day circled on my calendar for three weeks. The Bouchard deal. A third-generation shipping company out of Maine. The old man outlived his son, croaked, and the granddaughter couldn’t keep the business afloat. Happens all the time. So this is where we come in, trying to make a deal with said granddaughter to purchase the company and work our magic. 

“Janelle’s coming at eight,” the boss says. 

That’s her name: Janelle Bouchard. I know because the holdup was her. And me. There’s something in her books that doesn’t smell right. An unexplained payment of the kind the IRS like to use as an excuse for an audit. One or two, maybe I wouldn’t be so concerned. Here, there are many. Despite assurances from everybody, including the boss, that it’s legit, that it’s a part of generally accepted accounting practices (what we call GAAP), that there’s nothing to worry about, I worry. The WAAC was also implicated though, and I wasn’t about to WAAC it while Bouchard Transport is potentially cooking its books and okay my firm’s purchase of damaged goods. 

“She’s a hot ticket,” the boss says. “Knows the company inside and out. Just has no interest anymore. Wants to cash out and find herself, do yoga in the fucking woods or something. Go find herself. Rich young woman stuff. Good for her. Would that we all could pawn off our patrimony to self-actualize in a tropical jungle.” 

“I know Tim.” 

“Think of the payout.”

“I can’t stop thinking about it, Tim. I also can’t stop thinking about lawyers for various regulatory agencies saying my name in stern tones in front of a panel of judges.” 

“You talk too much and you worry too much. Just listen to me. Ms. Bouchard wants to talk to you herself. Says she can clear it up in like five minutes. I’m giving you half an hour. Don’t screw this up.”  

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” That’s what I tell him. But I dream of it all the time. Of screwing up. I wake up heart pounding from dreams of blowing it in spectacular fashion, whatever “it” is: a deal, my taxes, my marriage. The yardwork. A painting I’m working on in my garage. Missing key appointments. Not following up with the doctor about that lump on my nuts, or worse, my kids’ strange cough. Of being caught off guard, with my pants down and mouth agape, of being on the can hand to the gland when the world decides it’s time to end. Those kinds of dreams. 

Dreams of overextending myself. Of living high on the hog when I don’t have the means, thinking positive like those gurus say and waiting for paydays that never come. Oh wait, that’s not a dream. That’s reality. This is why I’m drowning. 

The sword of Damocles is for amateurs. I am sitting under the old boy’s anvil. A grand piano. An Acme safe hanging by my own short-and-curlys. To fail is to die. If you’re not rich you’re a moral reject, American style. Get rich or die trying, but there are some deaths worse than death.

Eight o’ clock. Slightly under forty minutes to kill. I suck on three candies from the dish on Kerri’s desk as I go over the file. Someone brought donuts and I scarf one down, feeling the sick void of eating junk on an empty stomach, belly full but still hungry like a black hole never satisfied with anything less than total consumption of everything around it, even light. Such is the nature of man. 

I am worried something big will happen. Excuse me, B-I-G. Janelle Bouchard wants to meet me alone because I am, what, a pushover? Easy meat? Tempted by the payout? Maybe. Okay, yes. 

I am not thrilled about a closed-door meeting with a woman. I have never been unfaithful to my wife. I’ve been married twenty-one years this December and don’t regret a moment of it. Well, maybe I regret being unable to provide. So does my wife. It’s created this Thing between us, the kaiju in the room, so to speak. But all that aside, the bond is strong. So why put myself in a position like this? B-I-G. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it turns out that shoe is a high-heel that costs about what I make in two weeks. 

The sound it makes striking the tile floor is arousing and frightening in equal measure. Men walk around with nooses around our necks and women walk around with daggers on their feet. Makes you wonder. Did I mention this office has no windows?

The door opens. I stand. 

“So it’s you,” she says, smiling. Yes, let’s get it out of the way: Miss Bouchard is as striking as insinuated. Fiery. A mass of brown curls you want to squeeze until she screams, and afterwards keep squeezing. Body poured into business attire that could double as a costume on an adult movie set. One of those “dominant office ladies” type of fantasy. Not that I’d know; I’m speculating. 

“It’s me,” I say. Then: “Good morning, Miss Bouchard. I’m—”

“I know who you are, she says. My little pain.” 

“Please, take a seat.” 

She does, legs crossed facing away from me. It’s a body language thing I notice. I try to be aware of such things. It helps with negotiations and connecting with clients. I mirror her, keeping my posture closed, aloof. I don’t think a T-pose would work on a woman like this. 

She shakes her foot. I can’t tell if she’s being impatient or playful. She begins: “So listen. I understand your job is to find cracks and poke holes so we can fill them in and make this deal bulletproof. That’s why I’m here. I know everything. Any question, any at all, ask me.”

“That is my job,” I say. “I’m glad you understand.” 

She learns forward a bit, hands still folded over her stomach. “But you’re not a roadblock. You’re doing it to help me, not yourself. You’re not a lawyer. I used to date a lawyer. I know the type.” 

“Okay.” 

She regards me with eyes I don’t like, as if I’m something to eat. I am dangerously close to my fifties but I like to think I haven’t totally lost my fastball. Minimum wrinkles. Full head of hair and the only gray on my sideburns. I might not be as trim as I was in my twenties but I’m fitter than most guys in their twenties. I often get propositioned by older ladies on the prowl who ignore wedding rings. No so much by the young ones. It starts to grow hot. 

“So aren’t you going to ask?”

I resist the urge to clear my throat. I don’t like this. “I am a pain,” I say, “but it’s for a reason. I see a series of monthly payments, nothing major, that just say Other. At regular intervals going back to 1963. They started at $500 dollars and have increased along with the rate of inflation to where we were today. All made in cash, I presume, because I see no record other than Other.” 

“So?”

“So this is what I want to get ironed out.” I turn the folder around and slide it gently across the table. “I’ve highlighted on my spreadsheet . . .”

“I like how you use paper and not Excel,” she says. “Very old school. I like that.” 

She must, the way she says “like.” Like a purr.

“Do you know what it looks like to me?” I say. “Hush money. The amounts paid at regular intervals. Keeping up with inflation. Like broken up pieces in lieu of a lump sum. A red flag. Multiple red flags. Month after month, year after year.” 

Miss Bouchard says nothing for a while, though her smile says plenty. “I guess it’s true, she says at last, “that you’re the smartest man here. It really wasn’t a myth that the education system was better in your day. It’s funny you say ‘hush money.’ This is what I was afraid someone would ask, because it’s a story I’m not exactly proud of.” She straightens, a sour twist to her lips that’s not entirely disapproving. She shrugs. “What can I say? My granddad couldn’t keep it in his pants during business trips. Sometimes he had to do what he had to do to make a deal. And sometimes the old guy just got horny on the road. Grandmother was a looker but she wasn’t exactly what we call warm and inviting. Not like later generations.” 

Something grazes my shin. I think it was an accident from her foot kicking, but there it is again: expensive leather against my sensible slacks. 

“There’s an entire separate branch of my family that may one day have decided to seek a piece of the family fortune. I mean, they’re entitled to it, technically. But what if . . . let’s just say there was a contract somewhere giving up any claim to the Bouchard Shipping empire. A trust. The money goes in there, keeps that separate branch of the family tree watered, happy, and away from the rest of us. Is that illegal?”

“It might be. Could be. I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer.” 

“That’s what I like about you.” 

“I’d have to check with legal.” 

The high heel clatters on the floor. Now I know the rubbing against my shin is deliberate. “I know this deal is important to you. I know there’s a big commission.”

“That has nothing to do with anything. If you’re trying to insinuate—”

“I’m trying to say that this is a win-win for all involved if we just look the other way.” 

I’m ashamed to even admit that her toes rubbing against my shin turned me on like I was fourteen again, watching the high school girls play field hockey. I move my leg away. “Well, if there’s a contract saying they forswear any claim, or whatever the term is, then there’s a contract.” 

Miss Bouchard smiles. “You said you’re not a lawyer. I’m not either, but I’ve talked to enough to know that not all contracts are enforceable. Especially old ones like that, signed by people who are dead. Kind of hard to enforce their rights without some sort of sorcery or something.” 

I clear my throat. It’s gotten hot in here and my stomach threatens to bring up that donut and those candies all over Miss Bouchard’s fancy shoes. “My knowledge of magic is limited to numbers,” I say. 

A laugh. “Math is a kind of magic. Do you know what else is?”

In my mind, I know where she’s going. A flash of bare flesh passes in my head. Wandering thoughts: what kind of bra is she wearing? Black lace or red? Sheer? An important question. My next words have nothing to do with magic and everything to do with practicality: “You want to keep the hush money hush hush.” 

“Why should both of us have to pay for my grandfather’s mistakes?”

She is right in a way. Few things burn as much as being prisoners of the past. Why should I forswear, to use that word, my piece of this old lecher’s business empire to a parallel family that hasn’t been in the picture since the Kennedy administration? Who deserves a piece of this more: me, a legitimate part of the transaction, or the spawn of a jilted lover nobody had seen for generations?

It’s not right, dammit, to put me in this position. I’d be better off not knowing. 

The right thing to do, the ethical thing, would be to seek out this contract, check out the terms, see who the payout should go to, do everything by the book. And I’m an ethical person. 

The right things tastes like shit but I swallow the first bite of that sandwich and get ready to speak. I’ve made up my mind. If I’m one thing, if there’s one thing I pride myself on, base my identity on, is being one-thousand percent aboveboard. I don’t care if other accountants bend the rules for their clients. That’s not me. And maybe I’m leaving money on the table with my stupid morals, but that’s an indictment on the system and not me. I can sleep at night, no demons hounding my dreams, and there’s something to be said for that. 

And there’s also something to be said for the stink of failure, the stink of unpaid bills, the fetid reek of being unable, as a man to provide. Life is a deep, rich brown smeared all over the face of the honest man. And sometimes you get tired of it and want a bite of the juicy steak, the real thing, that they’re eating up on Nob Hill. 

“You’re thinking,” she says. “I don’t like that.” 

“I am. I’m thinking about what could deep-six this whole thing.” 

I expected her demeanor to change. To stiffen. For her head to shake, eyes downcast, maybe a make a disgusted throat-clearing sound. None of that. 

That hungry smile deepens. She talks in a near whisper. “I learned a thing or two from granddad about closing deals. She touches my hand.” 

I pulled away, even more ashamed at how hard it was to do so. I’ve always been faithful. Over twenty years . . . 

“I’m a married man,” I say. 

“You’re also a good man. You deserve that bonus and you deserve more.” 

“This meeting over.” That’s what I wish I said. I wish I said anything. It was hard to think with the feeling that I was not in control. Whatever force controlling my perception beamed a transmission of my darkest fears. Unpaid bills piled like pyramids, the sun rising behind them. A desert of debt. My wife, unable to bear another day spent with such a loser at life, walking out the door. 

“You don’t know me,” I snarl. 

“No, but I know guys like you. Dozens. Hundreds. You play by the rules your whole life and get nowhere. It’s like cardio, right? You’re on a treadmill. You think you’re getting in shape but you’re just getting soft. But you’re not soft now.”

Again with the toes. No I am not soft. But I am weak. 

“I can sweeten the deals,” she says. She slides off the chair and on to her knees. “I know you’re a married man, but does your wife do this?” 

---

Yes she does, actually, but that’s not the point. The point is that my wife is not responsible for a $13.5 million deal. My wife isn’t responsible for me getting a bonus that will not only wipe the slate clean, but will put me in the black by a lot.

But she is also tired. Watching three kids, running a household, having a job of her own. It’s hard to find time to talk, let alone do anything else. I’m tired too. Tired of everything. Tired of feeling like I’m just playing out the string. Sometimes a man wants to feel alive again. But not like this. 

What we have here is a serious shortage of rubber goods. I have half a mind to raid the Congo. At least I did not get any of the wet stuff on her. 

The rest of the day passes in a lurid blur. The deal is completed and my fate is sealed. Tim broke out a bottle of something expensive and I drank way too much. Everyone laughs. It’s excusable. I throw up on the carpet, a lovely brown stain. That’s excusable too. “Take the rest of the day off,” Tim says. But I don’t. In fact, I work late, but not too late to be suspicious. There is no sense in alerting Cindy to my infidelity. 

I am afraid I will blurt everything out the second I get home. Maybe they would be the best thing, just fess up right away. A different form of vomit, a different kind of stain. Life would be hard in the short-term but better overall. Easier. And that is what we all want, a life of ease. That is why we put on our ugly ties and hang ourselves on the gallows of the business world. My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my company. What have I become?

On the way to my car, sobered up by the crisp night, I think about asking one of the addicts for a quick hit of what they’re suffering from. It can’t be any worse. I’m richer now. Flush. I’ll be able to pay them for it. Honest. 

Honest. 

---

Dinner is waiting when I open the door to the apartment, table set. She made the pasta sauce she knows I love, the one with the mushrooms. “What’s the occasion?”

“Nothing,” she says, punctuated with a kiss. “I just miss you. Kids are all cleaned up and ready to eat.” I say nothing.

I put my briefcase on the side table. “They waited?”

Cindy shrugs. “Snacks helped.” 

The table was set as if for a film. My fight-or-flight response kicked in, maybe for the first time since second grade when terrible Terry Bingham chased me around the playground threatening to give me a wedgie until my balls fell off. I wish he had. I wish they did. 

“That’s wonderful,” I say. 

“Where are you going?”

“Take a shower. It was a long day, you know?”

“Well, I hope you’re not too sleepy because we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.” She has that look in her eye, the one I’ve been waiting to see for so long. So long . . . but not tonight. 

The hot water, I hope, can wash the stink of another woman off of me. I was afraid Cindy would smell it right away. Women are good at that you know. Like she-cats. I would deserve her tearing me to pieces. 

Dinner is lovely. Everyone is so happy that daddy had a good day at work. A great day. So different from what the family is used to hearing. The tense atmosphere punctured by sunshine, or at least a simulacrum of it. I am jumpy, afraid at any second someone would figure it out. What was the thing that would happen in the old movies? Lipstick on your collar? A whiff of strange perfume? A different-colored hair plucked and held up accusingly: Who is she? the angry wife would say. Rightfully angry. I want to suffer but get nothing save smiles. 

“Daddy saved us,” Cindy tells the kids. They’re too young to know what mommy means but they cheer because they love me. I almost cry. 

That night Cindy wants to make love. First time in weeks? Months? “I’m so proud of you,” she whispers to me. “When you close deals like that it’s so hot. How’d you do it? Tell me all about it. “

I lie. I lie by omission so fucking big I’m afraid it will warp all time and space. The lie is wrapped in industry jingo to the point of meaninglessness. Cindy doesn’t care. She wants me. But I care. Little Martin cares too but is not up for the task. How could he be?

It stings. A man is both the contents of his wallet and the contents of his underwear, nothing more and nothing less. Money and dick, that’s the long and short of it. Ha ha, long. This time I do cry. The first time I’ve done so in front of my wife in so long I can’t remember. It’s something man should never do but this time I’m hoping it will make her leave me alone. 

It doesn’t. On her side, playing with my chest hair. She’s older than Janelle Bouchard, not as firm, her face gaunt and haggard from worry but she’s far more beautiful. Glowing. But does she love me, or the deal I just closed? And should I expect anything else? We’re rational people, right? What good is a man if he can’t provide? What good?

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “It was a Very Big Day.” 

“It’s okay honey, don’t worry. Don’t cry.” It’s a role reversal that I’m not prepared to feel bad about. 

“I have to tell you something.” 

Cindy straightens a bit. The circular motion of her hand slows down. I feel the cool night air against my nipples. 

“I . . . I’m just so happy it’s all over.” 

“Me too baby me too.” She kisses me. Little Martin starts to stir. Before I know it we are banging noisily and somehow don’t wake up the little one in the next room. She covers my mouth as I reach the end, biting on her own finger to suppress her own screaming. It felt too good, better than I deserve. Money and sex. Truly my cup runneth over. The American dream is mine, all mine. And all I had to do was betray somebody’s trust. Anything for a deal. Old man Bouchard understood this and look where it got him. Maybe it bothers some people more than others. Maybe old man Bouchard was just built differently. Maybe I am too. A chip off the old block, even though the only DNA I shared with him was skin deep. 

That thought makes me sick. Little Martin still dripping, I go to the toilet and throw up. 

“Are you sick, honey?” 

“No Cin, I drank too much after the deal. Tim brought out the good stuff.” 

“Oh baby, you know that kills your gut.” 

“Yeah. Fuck Tim. He should’ve known.” 

“Yes he should have. Come lay down. I’m not through with you yet.” 

---

I lie awake. It’s cold outside but I’m burning, the moonlight my only cover. It’s been a month now. Thirty-one days. Every so often I wake up, thinking it was a dream. Because I don’t dream about mundane things now. I dream about doing bad deeds. About violating trust. About hurting the people I love. I have a friend who got divorced after an affair, Ken. Guy I knew from my first job. “Know the only thing you miss out on when you don’t step out on your woman?” he asked one time. “The guilt,” he said without waiting for my reply. Too true, Ken, too true. But we’re nothing if not incapable of learning from other people’s mistakes.

When I start awake three minutes before my alarm goes off, reality coming back into focus, I feel my heart slow with the realization that it was all in my head. Nothing to worry about. The oxytocin high only lasts a moment when reality achieves dominance. Real life is worse than any nightmare. It’s a reality I made. Me and no one else. 

I hate her but I can’t stop feeling the touch of her skin on my fingertips. I want to feel it again and it’s driving me mad. Did you know she has a small tattoo of a butterfly right above her Venus mons?

I don’t know if I’m atheist or agnostic. I just don’t think about it. Never did and until now never thought I will. Strange and uncomfortable feelings squirm inside the more quotidian knots in my gut. I’ve heard that hell is the absence of God. Is this hell? Would I even know if it was?

She is not going to come back after me. She is not going to get mad at me. She never even asked my name. I was nothing to Miss Bouchard. A tool used to broker a deal. Use everything at your disposal, just like granddad. There is no need to be alarmed. Yesterday’s sexual revolution is today’s sexual regime. It was as routine for her as getting a drink of water. As long as nobody gets hurt and no more unwanted offshoots of the family tree spring into being, what’s the big deal? No harm no foul. This is what emancipation looks like. This is the world we live in. But if that’s the case, why do I feel so frightened?

- Alexander