Dr. Barnum is a large man with thick curly hair and glasses, wearing a well-ironed shirt and purple bowtie. He shakes my hand and asks me to take a seat. So I do. He asks me a series of non-threatening get-to-know-you questions about my job and a little about my personal life: whether I'm married, do I have kids, where did I grow up. This chit-chat goes on for fifteen minutes, then he asks me if I've ever heard of a Rorschach test? I tell him yes and he tells me we should try it. He shows me inkblots and asks me what I see in them.
“Well here and here,” I say pointing, “there are clearly two men hiding behind bushes with guns.”
“How about this one?”
“In this one a man is stabbing a sheep, that's all the blood pouring out there.”
“Okay, and this one?”
“That's a man pushing someone down a hole.”
“Interesting,” says Dr. Barnum, pushing his glasses up his nose.
“Yes, and look here, the hole has teeth.”
Sarah and I have been attending pre
natal classes in the evenings. This is where a group of pregnant women sit around with their life partners or spouses, and some nurse tells them what's going to happen, what it's like to have a baby. The only reason I agreed to attend is to show Sarah that I'm a dedicated father. The woman who teaches the class is a real hardcore granola. She favours ethnic clothing, usually brightly coloured ponchos or East Indian patterned shirts with wooden beaded necklaces. Apparently she has four children, but she is unattractive with a personality to match, not even a sense of humour to save her.
Last week Sarah and I were joking around on the birthing ball. We were supposed to be practising different positions, all the while performing the appropriate breathing techniques while we worked through pretend contractions. Sarah was on her knees hugging the ball, as were all the women in the class, and the men were behind rubbing the ladies' backs. I made some remark about how I thought this position is how we got into this class in the first place. The couple beside us, with whom we've made friends, laughed. Miss whole-grain loaf came over and said, “Humour will only get you so far in the delivery room.” What a delightful woman.
This week's class is going to be on episiotomies and circumcision. Since we know we're having a girl, and since it's Phil's birthday, I begged Sarah to give this class a skip. She said she wanted to go anyway, just in case we had a boy for our second child, but I was free to take the night off. I was going to suggest that we see how the first child goes before we consider having a second. But then I thought better of it and kept my mouth shut.
I meet Phil and a couple of buddies he went to school with, Roy and Ross, at The Keg for dinner down in the market. His friends appear to be good guys and we get along just fine. Phil tells the story of Crazy Larry and the pizza costume and has them in stitches. We drink a lot of beer and each of us buys Phil a shot. After, we go to a dance club so Phil can check out the ladies. I ask him where the hell Zoe is. He says that he told her he needed a guy's night out. She's apparently giving him something very special for his birthday tomorrow, he tells me with a big drunken smile plastered across his face. I refrain from inquiring. The club is dead because we are too early. So we head over to the Chateau Lafayette for a couple pints. I'm getting pretty drunk and I keep calling Ross, Roy and Roy, Ross. One of them suggests that we should hit the urban folk dancers.
“Urban folk dancers, what are they?” I ask.
“Dude,” says Phil, “the peelers, across the street at the Barefax.”
“Jesus, Sarah will have my balls. I'm supposed to be at a prenatal class.”
“Don't tell her,” says Ross, or is it Roy?
“Yeah, let's go,” says the other one.
The music is loud and the light is dim and everything seems to be accented in neon trim, pink and blue. A man the size of a vending machine with a bald head and a handlebar moustache reminiscent of the one Sarah's great-grandfather has in the picture in our hallway watches us expressionlessly as we make our way through the coat check and into the bar. There's a woman on stage wearing nothing but thigh-high white boots. She's bent over, palms pressed flat against the stage, showing the men in perverts' row that no, she has never undergone an episiotomy, all to the musical offerings of Finger Eleven. The place is not that busy so we get a good table with a clear view of the stage. I order a beer and end up paying eight bucks for it, including tip. The next thing I know, we have tequila shots lined up all over the table and Roy and Ross have hired a sassy redhead to table-dance for us. Now, I consider myself a devoted and loyal husband, but as a male still in my prime, I can't help but imagine what taking this little firecracker to bed would involve: screaming, the clawing of bedsheets, a virtuoso performance. Wow! Having sex with Sarah, now that she is pregnant, is a little odd for me. It's not that the sex is bad; it's just that when we're having it, I keep flashing to an ultrasound image of Sammy being poked in the eye socket by the head of my penis. It's an awful image. Now here I am, looking at this fine specimen of womanhood, and that's what I'm thinking about, Sammy getting poked in the womb by her father's dick.
“Drink up,” says Phil, passing me some sort of purple shooter. I drink it, thinking I probably shouldn't. I look around the room at the other men. There are a couple of guys at the next table who appear to be bikers. I'm sure they supply these girls with cocaine or whatever they need. Ross stands up and knocks over one of the biker's beers on a trip to the washroom, but is too drunk to notice. The biker stands up and grabs Ross by the shirt collar and spins him around. Ross sees who he's dealing with and babbles out a series of apologies. We placate the whole situation by buying the two of them a new round of drinks and a table dance. My heart is still moving faster than it should be. I'm still riding a wave of adrenalin. What if the guy had a knife; what if things had escalated? I think of the headline, “Bar Fight Turns Tragic.” I picture Sarah telling Sammy that her father died in a strip club. “Guys, I've got to go home soon,” I tell them.
Outside I bum a smoke off Roy. I'm one of those drunken smokers, the kind real smokers hate. I cough and hack my way through it as we all tumble back to the dance bar. Within twenty minutes, Phil hooks up with some attractive blonde and Ross seems to be doing well with her friend. I yell over the music to Roy that I'm going to take off. He nods his head, not really giving a shit either way. I think about saying goodbye to Phil, but I don't want to interrupt his gyration on the dance floor.
I stagger to the local poutine stand and get myself a large. I catch a cab and eat it in the backseat on the way home. I ask the cabbie the time and he tells me it's a quarter to two. Shit, I hope Sarah is in bed. The motion of the cab is making me queasy. I can't eat anymore. Feeling wonky. Don't get sick in the cab. Don't get sick in the cab. I chant this mantra to myself until I arrive safely home.
The light is on when I come in the door. I hope I'm not going to get the why-didn't-you-call lecture. I told Sarah I was going to be late. I told her not to wait up. She comes barrelling out into the hallway to greet me. “You went to a strip club?!” screams Sarah.
How the hell could she know that? “How the hell do you know that?” I ask.
“You sack of shit, I can't believe you went to see strippers!”
“Listen, it wasn't my idea. I was there, but I decided I didn't want to be knifed in a strip club. I've vowed never to go back.”
Sarah comes closer to me, then jerks her head back like she has discovered a mouldy container of food in the refrigerator. “You stink. Were you smoking?”
“Yes, I had a cigarette. What's the big deal? How did you know I was at the strip club?”
“I checked our online banking and you debited forty dollars at the club.”
“Well aren't you a clever one, Miss CSI.”
“Fuck you Colin, you⦔
I take off running to the toilet. I manage to make it just in time. Sarah screams from the doorway, “Are you committed to this baby or are you committed to drinking fucking beer with Phil? I swear to God Colin, if you don't improve your behaviour, if you don't lay off the booze, I'll get a fucking abortion! I'm not living this way.”
“Jesus,” I moan, hugging the toilet, “can you give me a little break here. Besides, isn't it a bit late for an abortion?”
“Bastard!” she yells, slamming the washroom door. A few seconds later, I hear the bedroom door slam. I manage to clean myself up, rinse my mouth out, and then lurch over to the living room couch, turning out the light on the way. I promptly collapse.
I'm almost asleep when Sarah comes charging back out, snapping the light back on. “I swear to you Colin, if you don't commit to this baby, I'll leave you,” she says.
“I'm fucking committed. Jesus, turn out the light will you? Enough already.”
“Turn it out yourself!” she yells, turning around, marching back to bed. SLAM! goes the bedroom door again.
Christ almighty.
The next day, I call in sick to work. I spend the day recovering. I do penance by cleaning our apartment head to toe, and making Sarah a homemade spaghetti and meatball dinner, each meatball hand-rolled with love. I limit myself to one glass of wine with dinner. We drive over after dinner to Elgin Street and go to the Mayflower restaurant for coconut cream pie and decaffeinated coffees.
She hasn't brought it up since she left for work this morning. “So tell me,” she says, shovelling a big piece of pie into her face, “were the girls attractive? Did you get a boner?”
“Yes they were, and no I did not.”
“Why, are you gay, or you just can't get it up when you're drunk?”
“Very funny. Are you done with this?”
“Are you sorry?”
“Very sorry.”
“I'm done.”
Today we celebrated Peter Cann's retirement luncheon in the big boardroom. There were speeches, gifts, balloons, tons of food and a spectacular slideshow that Phil had put together with pictures of Peter supe
rimposed on various and easily recognizable world monuments, places that Peter said he will travel to when he retired â Peter at the Eiffel Tower, Peter at the Egyptian Pyramids, Peter in lederhosen on the side of a mountain looking at a goat; the next slide Peter is in bed with the goat. This kind of risqué push of the political correctness envelope, in our uptight office seems to go over surprisingly well, even with upper management. Maybe somebody spiked the punch, or maybe people were still a little on edge after Crazy Larry and the asbestos aftermath and really just needed a good cathartic laugh. Whatever the reason, it was actually kind of fun.
I'm disappointed that Peter is leaving. Aside from Phil, Peter was the one beacon of light in a sea of watered-down bean counters. People here are as intellectually appetizing as a bowl of melted vanilla ice cream. Which reminds me, Bruce has now worked up the courage to speak to me directly again. He told me at the luncheon that they'd found a replacement for Brita. Apparently after Crazy Larry did his thing, some manager noticed that we actually had a handicapped washroom, but we had no disabled person to use it. For some reason somebody somewhere thought that the washroom needed justification. We were lagging in some sort of quota, hence we needed to get a cripple, as Bruce put it. So, we are getting Jackie. Jackie is not in a wheelchair. Jackie is blind. Supposedly she is legally blind, but not a hundred percent blind. She does have some very limited tunnel vision. “She's starting tomorrow,” Bruce tells me. “You can show her the ropes.”
In advance of her arrival, two tech maintenance people come in and replace Brita's computer and monitor with some interesting-looking equipment. Jackie's monitor is huge. Attached on its corner is a swivel arm with a giant round magnifying glass. Her keyboard has Braille bumps on the keys. They load interactive speech software to enable Jackie to talk to her PC. They also install a Braille printer on her desk. So much for Paperless Office.
I'm working away, lost in some tricky code, when I hear Bruce clear his throat behind me. I spin in my chair and there's Bruce and a woman who's about forty-five, wearing a horrific purple and yellow paisley dress. She's smiling yet not looking at me, but rather just above me and slightly to the right. In her hand she's clutching the handle of a harness fastened to a panting golden retriever.
“Colin, I would like you to meet Jackie and Mr. Peaches, the guide dog.”
“Pleased to meet you,” says Jackie, extending her arm out into the air.
I stand and take her hand, touching her slightly on the arm to correct her position so she's facing me and not my cubicle wall.
“Nice to meet you.”
“Colin here will be showing you the ropes. Get you going. Here's her user ID and temporary passcode,” says Bruce, passing me a piece of paper. When I reach for it, I notice Carla. She has turned in her seat and is looking at Mr. Peaches, horrified. Bruce catches my glance. “Oh,” he says. “Almost forgot, your other cubicle partner here is Carla.”
Jackie turns, following Bruce's voice and faces Carla. “Pleased to meet you,” she says, again extending her hand into the air.
Carla doesn't move. This is interesting; nobody has ever tried to shake Carla's hand before. I see one of my co-workers, Jill from the Refrigerator Committee, in the hallway heading to the washroom. She sees the situation. Jill is bright. She pivots and slides gracefully past Bruce so she is now facing Jackie. She takes her hand and says, “Pleased to meet you too.” Then she slips back into the hallway and is gone. Jackie looks puzzled as to why her co-worker came and left from the direction of the hall. I throw Jill a smile and a thumbs-up for her brilliant miniscule charade. She winks back and wanders off.
Bruce steers a confused-looking Jackie away from a confused-looking Carla and says, “And this is where you'll be sitting.”
“Where's Dan?” I ask Bruce. I haven't seen the guy in at least a week.
“Dan's been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I don't think he'll be back. I've been meaning to come and talk to you about this. Until we can find a replacement, you'll need to take over for Dan.”
This comes as no surprise. It won't make much difference since I'm doing 95 percent of his work anyway. I think Dan knew in his heart that he would end up on long-term disability. My heart knew it, too. “No worries, Bruce, I've got it covered.”
“Jackie here is going to be working on updating the threshold conversion document. So if you can show her what she needs to do, that'll be great.”
Updating the threshold conversion document is about as useful a task as counting grains of sand on a beach â useless and never-ending. Brita never did it for just that reason. I assume Bruce has given her this task because it doesn't matter if she screws it up or not; nobody ever looks at it. So now, on top of doing my own work, Brita's work, and Dan's work, I have to babysit Jackie and Mr. Peaches. Great.
I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to get Jackie logged onto the mainframe. The LAN people give her the word “password” to temporarily log in with, and she manages to lock herself out by incorrectly typing it. We have to call and get it reset, three times. Turns out she had caps lock turned on. Jackie is extremely slow. Watching her trying to perceive what's happening on the screen with the giant fish-eye lens is comically painful. It's even difficult for me to navigate the screen because everything is enormous. Even if Jackie could see, it's still a nightmare trying to manoeuvre around the LAN to find any document; everything seems to be buried six file folders deep. I spend the next two days just trying to get her set up. I am the Miracle Worker.
A week has gone by. Sarah has pain in her lower back and isn't sleeping well. Hence I'm not sleeping well either. I'm washing my hands in the bathroom sink at work. My thoughts float around my mind like a mobile: Is my book scary enough? What if Sammy hates me? Did I forget to take out the garbage? Why do I think about these things? Can I think any differently than I do? Why do I keep thinking about what I'm thinking about?
I look at myself in the mirror. Bloodshot eyes look back. Dope-smoking eyes. Maybe it's pinkeye? Maybe it's eye cancer? A wave of panic washes over me. I clutch the counter. My heart is galloping. Maybe I'm having a heart attack? When I finally calm down and am able to compose myself, I walk over and tell Bruce that I have to go to the doctor. At the clinic there is a forty-five-minute wait. What if they have to remove both my eyes and I'll never get to see Sammy before she is born? What if I die? Sammy will never get to know her father. I'll have to make videos for all of her birthdays until she turns twenty-one. The last one will be me in Randy Pausch style expelling nuggets of wisdom: follow your passion Sammy, don't settle for an office job, you'll hate yourself and end up dying of eye cancer.
“Colin MacDonald?” chimes a voice.
An unfriendly nurse brings me to a little room to wait for the doctor. I stare at the poster on the wall, a cross-section of the middle ear. Maybe I'll go deaf too? Then there's a knock and the door opens. A little East Indian woman enters with a clipboard and introduces herself as Dr. Lakhani. She tells me it's probably just allergies and sends me down the street for tests. Turns out I'm allergic to dogs. Maybe I should adopt a few pieces from Carla's new wardrobe. She's taken to wearing a white lab coat, rubber surgical gloves and an air-filtering mask. A rash has formed on Carla's cheek around the edge of the mask. She looks as if she should be working in a laboratory for infectious diseases. It turns out I am the one who could probably use the mask.
I'm the last to arrive at our weekly group meeting, which now, after the loss of Dan and Brita, consists of Bruce, Carla, myself, Jackie and Mr. Peaches. Bruce is going over a meeting he had with the managers about the sense of urgency and the need for commitment from every employee to reach the goal of Paperless Office 2012. I smell shit. No, it's not what's coming from Bruce's mouth, I mean I smell real shit. I look over and there in the corner of the room, next to the easel with the large sheets of paper used for brainstorming (in most cases it's a light drizzle), is Mr. Peaches, taking a dump on the carpet. “Bruce, check it out,” I say pointing, interrupting him.
“Oh my. Jackie, Mr. Peaches seems to be going to the washroom.”
“Mr. Peaches!” cries Jackie. “Bad dog, bad dog. Come over here.” The dog looks sullen. It slowly comes over and lies down next to Jackie's chair.
“Colin, would you mind cleaning that up?” asks Bruce casually, as if he were asking me to retrieve a pen that had fallen on the floor. I'm surprised he has the nerve to ask after he has only recently recovered from fearing for his own physical safety.
“Yeah I mind,” I say.
“I'll get it, just show me where it is,” Jackie says.
“Why doesn't Carla get it, she's wearing gloves?” I suggest. I can't really read Carla's expression because of the mask.
“Colin, please, we can't leave it there,” says Bruce.
“You pick it up then,” I tell him.
“Why is Carla wearing gloves?” asks Jackie.
“Fine, I need to get a baggy,” says Bruce.
“I always carry baggies in my purse,” says Jackie. “I'll go to my desk and get one.”
“I'll get it for you Jackie,” I say.
“Oh, thanks Colin. My purse is in my desk drawer,” she tells me.
In my lengthy chats with Jackie, I've discovered a few things about Mr. Peaches. Jackie, because she does have some limited vision, wasn't on the top of the list to receive a dog. But Mr. Peaches came along because he flunked out of seeing-eye-dog school from the States. Apparently he barks at pigs. I'm not sure if that's enough to get you flunked, or if he lacks in some other capacity. I do know that when Jackie takes his harness off there is no evidence of any special abilities. She usually takes his harness off for most of the day. Mr. Peaches runs all over the office. I walked into my director's office the other day and low and behold, there was Mr. Peaches sniffing her crotch. Charming.
On my way back to my cube I catch glimpses of other people's garbage cans. They're overflowing. Rose and Jessica, the two African ladies who clean our offices, are terrified of Mr. Peaches and have basically stopped cleaning our floor. They only work during the day, so the garbage hasn't been picked up for over a week now. I find the baggy in Jackie's purse and bring it back to our meeting. I pass it to Bruce. I ask him as he's scooping, “So what's the time code for picking up crap, Bruce? Does that go under general maintenance?”
After the meeting is over, I'm extremely itchy everywhere, like I'm wearing wool pyjamas. I have red blotches which I imagine are hives. Mr. Peaches is sending me over the edge. But then something happens. Determinism. Some people call it fate. Was it always going to unfold this way? Yes. Somebody had the idea that the hundreds of boxes of file folders in the coffee room were taking up too much room. Could they have thought any differently? So they stacked them up to the ceiling. Here's an interesting fact you might enjoy: Ottawa is built on a fault line. From time to time, the good people of Ottawa experience a rumble: not just a cabinet shuffle in Parliament, but a real live earthquake. As fate would have it, Jackie and Mr. Peaches went to the coffee room in search of a cup when the earthquake struck. A ten-foot wall of boxes, each box being of substantial size and weight, came crashing down atop Jackie and Mr. Peaches. Jackie was rushed to the hospital where they determined that she had a concussion and a broken collarbone. Mr. Peaches went to the vet where they determined he had a broken front leg.
The next day, all the garbage is picked up, my hives are gone and my eyes aren't as red anymore. I receive an email from management saying that due to the hazardous situation in the coffee room, everyone will be required to store two boxes of file folders at his or her desk for the time being. Dr. Barnum would be available if anyone desired to talk about their feelings concerning what happened to Jackie and Mr. Peaches. Later in the day, I get an envelope dropped off in my in-basket containing two get-well-soon cards, one for Jackie and one for Mr. Peaches, and a little pouch for donations for a gift. I sign both cards thinking why, because she is never going to see it anyway. I slip a toonie into the pouch and then put the envelope into Carla's in-basket. A maintenance guy comes by with a cart and drops two boxes of file folders in each cubicle of our quad. After he leaves, I move my boxes to Jackie's cube. She and Mr. Peaches are going to be off work for quite some time.