Amok and the Invisible Man

Today, I learned:

On the island of Java there is a condition in which a man will fly into a sudden and uncontrollable rage. Seizing the nearest weapon – usually a club or machete – the man will attempt to kill anyone he can find until his rampage is ended as it began, by the cudgel or machete. In the native language this frenzied behavior is called amok, thus the English phrase ‘running amok’.

Certain tribes in West Africa are sometimes struck with koro, the belief that a man’s penis has fallen off or receded into his body. This, in turn, can kick off what has been termed a ‘penis panic’, in which several males of the community – despite all visible evidence to the contrary – believe their members have been stolen by a practitioner of witchcraft. In extreme cases, mobs of angry men take to the streets and drag the suspected sorcerer out of his or her home. Once again, machetes and clubs are likely to make an appearance.

These are called culture-specific illnesses, and I learned about them on the internet. Most of my day is spent on the internet. 

One of my bosses – I have four, far as I can tell – stops at my desk and begins rapping on it with his knuckles. I’m watching a video about spotted hyenas like I don’t give a damn. I don’t.

“Listen, I need you to get in those mileage numbers in by tomorrow. Delay anything else that might be on your plate, this is the priority. You’ve got a review coming up in a few weeks, and I hate being a jerk, but I will – if I have to.”

Say my name!

“Are we clear?”

 Say it, dammit!

I nod and turn back to the wall of my cubicle, hoping to divert his attention to the picture I put up. Some wraithlike woman is staring into the camera, nibbling seductively at her the fingertips. She’s nude save the strip of dental floss she’s passing off as underwear. My manager takes the bait, sees the picture…and nothing. Not an outraged gasp, not a raised eyebrow, just an indifferent glance like it was a chart explaining employee benefits or fire procedures. Exactly what I knew would happen.

He says, “Alright, Ali, I’m glad we’re on the same page. My office is always open if you need help with time management.” 

Ali! 

Of all the names I’ve been called (Rob, Charlie, Virgil, Jerome etc.) Ali is the most exotic. I have a pale, flat face topped with straw-yellow hair, a face my mother always described as ‘rustic’, which was her delicate way of saying ‘Midwestern’. My slacks are from a discount dress barn, my ten-dollar department store shirt is untucked on one side, and my Oxford shoes from Goodwill were likely on the feet of several dead men before finding their way onto mine. How could I be mistaken for an Ali?

I could take him up on his offer. I could have a sit-down in his office, and he would call me three different names over the course of the meeting. I don’t have anything to worry about. Somehow, he thinks I owe him mileage reports. That’s the accounting department, and I’m in the…what department am I in? It’s been so long since I’ve done any work around here.   

They hired me straight out of college, when this office and its honey-comb of cubicles were supposed to be stepping-stones towards bigger, better things. On my first day I checked in, sat, and waited. When no one came looking for me, I asked around. Everywhere, I got the same response: there’ll be someone at your desk. No one ever came. Soon, people were leaving paperwork in my inbox. I didn’t know what to do, so I put the work on other peoples’ desks. I lived in fear that any day my crimes would be discovered, a day that never came. I keep collecting my check every two weeks (I have to personally visit payroll or they will forget to send it) and, five years later, nobody has raised the alarm. Now, when someone puts paperwork on my desk, I throw it out.

I keep searching for this doppelganger who finishes the work I neglect and takes the rap for every act of theft, vandalism, and insubordination I’ve committed over the years. People retire, get promoted, resign, get laid-off, go on sick-leave and never come back. The faces around me change but I stay the same. My double isn’t out there. I’m alone in this. There could be no other way.  

My typical day involves coming in late, taking a long lunch break, and leaving early. During the few hours I’m actually at my desk, I surf the net. I look up interesting facts and stories, play video games with some kid two-thousand miles away (rotten little cheater that he is), and search for any smut that still has the power to shock or arouse me. The latter especially is becoming something of a job in itself: name any act, setting, scenario, or common household object and I’ve seen it exploited to the fullest of its erotic potential. More and more, the net resembles real life. I can go shopping, find jobs, buy sex, contract viruses, and get robbed. Difference is, in there I’m supposed to be anonymous, and out here I’m supposed to be held accountable for my actions.  

You may think that I’ve got it made, but it’s not easy. Like everyone, I’d grown up with a pretty clear understanding of what reality was. The realization that, when it came to me, reality had flipped the sign and stepped out to lunch was hard to swallow. Trying to understand the hows and whys, even harder. I keep expecting my number to come up, but it never does. That’s the worst part – I want to push it so badly, to test the limits, but I’m a coward. How else might my reality distort if I attempt to impose my will on it? No. Better to go with the flow, let it keep happening to me. As a captive of it, sure, but avoiding any nasty surprises that might come with experimentation. The second I start enjoying myself, it will come crashing down. I know it will. Nobody minds a ghost when it’s sighing in the attic, but when it starts rattling pots it’s time to call the exorcist.

I’d like to say my life outside the office is different, but I’m sure you can guess how that pans out.

Three weeks ago the fat, red-faced woman from HR paid me a visit. She put her paw on my desk and said she how sorry she was, that if there was any way she could help I should just ask. She had me confused with someone who just had a death in the family, or was diagnosed with a deadly disease (note to self: google lupus). The next day, I came in to an empty office. Just as I was trying to digest this disturbing break in routine, everyone jumped out and yelled surprise. A banner dropped from the ceiling that read ‘Happy Birthday Cliff.’ I ate cake while a guy from the mailroom asked if I was going to take off time for Passover. He thinks I’m Jewish, which doesn’t bother me, though Ali might not like it.

After the party I kicked a hole in the drywall, grabbed a handful of markers, and drew swastikas on every surface I could find. I went to my desk and waited for the bombs to start falling. They never did. Someone re-plastered the wall and painted over the swastikas. No one talked about it around the water cooler. There was no mention in the newsletter.    

Today, I find myself in the basement standing before the payroll counter. I’m collecting a second check. I give the clerk my name and tell her I never received my paycheck. She writes one out on the spot, tears away the carbons, and hands it over. For a moment, I can’t believe it. I pace around the hallway for a few minutes, re-enter the office, and give the lady the same exact same story. Without batting an eyelash she prints another check, stamps her signature, and pushes it across the countertop. In five minutes I just made 2,400 dollars. How many times can I do this? Seven, and only because the payroll department closed shop to attend a training downtown. 

 I pushed it farther than I ever thought I’d go. Is this how I appease whatever agent is acting upon my reality? Is this how I am seen? 

I’m taking an early lunch. I’m going to the sporting goods store and buying a shotgun. I am driving back to the office and walking up the stairs. People are noticing me now, giving me looks. I like the attention. Mostly, I like the way the walnut stock feels tucked under my arm, and how the cobalt steel glints from the overhead lighting. I’m walking like an old army colonel on parade, my chest swelling and legs pacing in long, regal strides. 

I see the woman from HR and take my first shot. The building is cheaply constructed. The buckshot turns the drywall into a dust-spewing hole. I fire four more times and smile at the satisfying feeling of inertia and impact. A power cable is severed, sending the upper floors into darkness. 

It isn’t like in the movies, all screaming and panic. People see me and freeze. They’re rooted in place, trying to figure out what’s happening, more inclined to believe it’s all a big joke, a drill, a performance art piece. I level the barrel at their heads and then the moment of pure reptile terror hits them. They dive for cover and I let the shot go, missing by inches. When they tell this story to their friends, they will make themselves out to be action heroes. Only I will know the truth. 

Now, I want to explain something: I’m not a bad shot, not with a shotgun, and not at this range. I’m no monster, either, which is why I’m making sure to miss all my targets. It’s possible that these are real people with real lives, not just phantoms here to torment me with obscurity and indifference. I know I’m insane. I just don’t know in what way. I’m not going to gamble with human life – or at least what passes as life for these people.

I go into a crowded room of workstations. The workers are in front of their computers. Their hands rest on the keyboards, dead, illuminated faces gazing at the screens. I fire at the ceiling and shout, “Heil Hitler!” A few people look up. I shoot again with a declaration of, “sic semper tyrannis!” Some more people look my way. One man raises a finger to his lips and shushes me. I start shooting at their workstations. The people get up file out of the room, as annoyed and resigned as if during a fire drill.  

I burst into an office where a man stares at a blank monitor. The stubble on his neck and the stench wafting from his chair suggests he hasn’t moved for days. I level the shotgun at his face. 

He looks up and says, “Excuse me? Do you have an appointment?”

I blow the monitor to pieces, he falls out of his chair, and I am running through the halls whooping and firing shots in the air. I take to dismantling a row of cubicles with blasts from the shotgun. I try to orchestrate it so they’ll all collapse at once like a house of cards, but soon I’ve got a mess on my hands. I run out of ammo and leave the building. I survey all the glorious destruction I’ve wrought, glad to have finally brought some life to the place.

The moment I hit the parking lot I see police cars, half a dozen pulled up around the entrance and twice as many closing in on the horizon. I walk through the officers as they storm the building. They don’t notice. One of them brushes my shoulder as he charges past. Another one, younger and clearly frightened, turns and looks at me. He’s squinting his eyes like I’m very far away, like I’m some form in the distance he can barely make out. His hand hovers over his holster, trembling with indecision. The hand drops. He turns away, shaking his head as if scolding himself for letting his imagination run away with him.  

I have seven paychecks in my wallet so I drive to the bank. I’m standing in line for a few minutes looking at the pattern in the marble floor when I notice all the funny looks people are giving me. I realize I still have the shotgun in my hands, and my khakis are stained with an oily streak from the muzzle. Still, no one says anything. They shift their weight from foot to foot in anticipation of the moment when I whirl towards the crowd, flash a satyr’s grin, and yell “gotchya!” as the camera crew emerges from the potted plants. It’s finally my turn at the counter. I lazily gesture with the shotgun as I make my request. I had come to make a deposit, but am leaving with a big withdrawal. 

I throw away the gun, knowing I no longer have anything to fear. I make my way down the street, colliding with people on the sidewalk. They stumble and look over their shoulders for the curb they tripped over. I am still moving, absentmindedly musing about what I should get for lunch. I hear a voice.

“Hey brother, spare a buck?”

I look and see a man of rags. One orange tooth emerges from a set of dry, deeply scored lips.

“Excuse me?” 

“You know, you got black stuff on your pants.” 

“You can see me?” 

“On your pants. Were you working on a bike or something?”

I nod, reach into the bag I got from the bank, and give him a stack of hundred dollar bills.   

“Holy shit! Is this for real? Hey brother, what’s your name, anyways?”

I can’t tell him. I don’t know. 

Though I’m glad he asked.