The man at the end of the hall
by Sam Vargo
[ fiction - april 05 ]
This much we know about the Man at the end of the hall: He has two children, a wife and a dog. He has a house in the suburbs and a schooner in the harbor. His large sailboat has big red and white sails attached to it and the boat's body is painted blue and aqua green. Someone who once had to visit the Man at the end of the hall's office told us so, because there is and there has always been a picture on the Man at the end of the hall's desk emblazoned in bold colors - mostly reds and blacks. And in this framed photo there is - word has it - a rather homely-looking, overweight woman and two rather hideous-looking, overweight, teenage girls pictured with the Man at the end of the hall seated right in the middle. And we know about the boat, too, from these visits, but I'll get into that later...
We don't know any of the names of the people in the photo. We know the Man at the end of the hall's name, since it is on a brass plate on the door of his office. But we never call him by his name; instead, we always refer to him as "the Man at the end of the hall." It is more fitting because, well... that's what he is, the Man at the end of the hall.
We surmise that these people are indeed, the Man at the end of the hall's immediate family - his wife and kids, that is. But since we never talk to the Man at the end of the hall, we'll never know. By the way, we've been told, through first-hand accounts, that the backdrop of the picture was made of what looked like a crushed velvet curtain. There was also a little artificial tree to the side of the family. In the photo, the Man at the end of the hall is dressed in a rather expensive suit and his wife and two girls were dressed in fine dresses, obviously their best. And we were told they were smiling big, beautiful, happy smiles.
And how do we know the Man at the end of the hall has a schooner?
Because in this picture, it was said some time ago, there is a small picture on a little table, in the foreground, of the same family, posed in much the same way on a schooner. The schooner was named after the Man at the end of the hall. The name of the boat was The Randall Wellingboothe. Yes, Randall Wellingboothe is the Man at the end of the hall's actual name. And fittingly, that is the name he also gave to his schooner.
We are quite aware that the Man at the end of the hall is vain and full of pride. The way he walks down the hall - the way he swaggers to and fro - is evidence enough of this fact. Some who work here say the Man at the end of the hall is an arrogant monster! I tend to agree with them but I don't totally agree. I have never actually talked to this man, so I could not make this sort of bold assumption right at this time.
But I witness his arrogant swagger each day. It's sickening the way he walks around here, like he actually owns the place.
We don't know what the Man at the end of the hall likes to do when he's away from this place - whether he likes to fish, watch television, attend boxing matches, get drunk or stoned, play around on the Internet, cross-dress or attend religious services in a devout fashion. We know he has a boat, but is it for show or does he race the boat against other sailing craft and the happy sailors who own them? Is he gay? Does he spank his wife or his mistress for fun? What kind of mother does the Man at the end of the hall claim? Does his Mom still claim him? What kind of toothpaste does he use? Does he put both socks on and then his shoes or does he put one sock on, then a shoe, then another sock and the other shoe? How can we know anything like this? We don't even know the Man at the end of the hall's favorite color, favorite animal and favorite TV show. All we've ever been privy to calling him is "the Man at the end of the hall."
The Man at the end of the hall has nothing to do all day, nothing at all. He walks up and down the hall sometimes, hands in his pockets, poor posture, hacking and coughing in a miserable way. He grumbles and frowns and never, ever smiles.
Not only do we not know his christened name, we don't know what he does around this place! But everyone stays away from the Man at the end of the hall. And for good reason: Whenever you actually meet this man, you are ushered into his office, then for a short time you make small talk with the Man at the end of the hall. Then, he gives you a little lecture, hands you a bureaucratic piece of pink-colored paper with a lot of gibberish on it, and in the end, all these political, corporate niceties mean you no longer will not return to this place. That's how we know about the picture of his family and the boat picture within the big picture. Every time someone leaves the Man at the end of the hall's office, he or she is very annoyed while cleaning out their desk. The only thing they really tell us about the office is the picture on the desk.
Some more observant of the corporate excommunicated talk a bit about the schooner and the picture within the picture. We know that Hans Burlingame was right on the mark since he was in Quality Control here for a decade. Hans was trained to spot things and was paid to be observant all day long. Too bad one day he wasn't so observant and the conveyor belt's long, unending stream of circular creeping led to 25,000 defective and dangerous widgets and wuzzles seeping like poison into sundry consumers' hands and mouths. By his watch! Consumers enjoyed the fruits of these widgets, wuzzles, ponfuns and schmuzzles. Some got sick. Others died. This cost the corporation thousands of dollars in unabated product loss and millions of dollars in lawsuits. By the way, that fateful afternoon also led to Hans Burlingame losing his cushy job as our day-shift 'QC eye-in-the-sky dog.'
The Man at the end of the hall has a big mole on the side of his face. It's a black, ugly, deplorable thing. We joke around that this was the leading feature of why he was hired here, particularly, in the position he holds. Sondra Sternstein once accidentally bumped into the Man at the end of the hall in the coffee room. She was pouring herself some tea and turned around abruptly. There he was, right there, and after slamming into him and spilling her tea, Sondra shrieked. She told us, as she returned to her office, that all she could see was that growing fungus on the side of the Man at the end of the hall's face and his angry frown. She told us the mole looked cancerous and contagious. Sondra called off sick the next two days, then when she returned she was ushered into the Man at the end of the hall's office, and after the door shut and after about ten minutes, reopened, Sondra returned to our side of the building. Crying, she cleaned out her desk and left - we've never seen her again.
The Man at the end of the hall has nothing to do all day, nothing at all. During many lunchtime get-togethers among our division of the company, we've discussed what the Man at the end of the hall gets paid to do. Once, at Arby's, I said he might be the corporation's hit man. Another time, at McDonald's, Sondra Sternstein (before she was terminated) said he might be related to the people who own the company. The receptionist, Lil Lullipese, said he might be a spy for the CIA. Now Lil, a rather attractive woman and a single mother of two little boys, has a very pejorative stigma against not only the Man at the end of the hall, but men in general. She feels very uneasy about men since most of them look at Lil the same way a hungry person looks at a piece of sassy, sweet cheesecake. Funny, I've seen some women around the office look at Lil that way, too, but she doesn't seem to mind them, or maybe Lil just doesn't notice them.
Once, Lil was busy typing some letters and she found the Man at the end of the hall staring at her breasts. She became nauseated after looking up and seeing his huge mole. In a fit of horror, Lil shrieked, but was never ushered into the man's office the next day like Sondra Sternstein was (before Sondra, our good friend and confidante', was so meanly terminated). Meantime, our janitor, Mike McGraw, announced to all present at a late-day New Year's Eve dinner at Denny's that he doesn't really care what the Man at the end of the hall is paid to do, as long as he, one known as Michael T McGraw, never ends up in this man's office.
The Man at the end of the hall has nothing to do all day, nothing at all. The crew in my side of the building get very jealous in knowing that all this guy does is slough off all day long and we have to work long hours, weekends and even holidays to pull our end of the load; oftentimes, just to keep out of the Man at the end of the hall's office.
The Man at the end of the hall smokes cigarettes. You see, none of us have ever actually caught him in this politically and corporately incorrect act, but my god man, he has to, as much as he coughs, hacks and chokes whenever he roams from one end of the hall to the other. And he always smells like a stale ashtray in an Alabama saloon the morning after! When he roams, he peeks his mole-pocketed head into our little company gateways, watching us like some big fish in the heart of the ocean would peer at much smaller fish. One day, as he was peering into doorways and windows, he handed out green and black armbands to each of us. He didn't say a word. Nope, he just handed them out. Later, Lil told us, under order, that we were to wear these armbands at all times, as a means of corporate policy. However, she informed all of us that we could remove the armbands when we slept in our own beds, but if we wanted to wear them while we slept, that was okay, too, as long as we didn't toss and turn too much and "rough up" the armbands. I'm sure many of the men and women wouldn't mind the armbands around if they shared their beds with Lil Lullapese.
Anyhow, Lil also told us the armbands were to promote some things the company was trying to do and sell. We all contended at Wendy's during lunch that day that the Man at the end of the hall has nothing to do all day, nothing at all. That's why he came up with the armband thing, because he's a totally useless parasite. Yet, he must do something really dramatic every few months so he is noticed and therefore, appreciated by the corporation. And to be honest with you, this lowdown, saw-dog of a public relations promo didn't sit with any of us. In anger, Mike McGraw took off his armband and threw it across the restaurant, but out of fear, he quickly retrieved it and put it back on his arm. Funny, he was called into the Man at the end of the Hall's office later that afternoon and after returning, cleaned out his desk and left. He was sobbing like a baby.
I saw him several months later holding a sign on a nearby interstate that read: "I'll work for food; but I need a ride to get to your house."
Not long ago, we were each given a little corporate memo telling us that the Man at the end of the hall would be calling us into his office, "for an urgent series of individual meetings." Now the crew at my end of the building became very intimidated. No kidding, Lil Lullapese was so nervous she vomited into a grocery bag. I carried it out to the dumpster. Although Lil is a stunning-looking woman, that grocery bag smelled like vomit!
But all of us knew what our fate would be. A long holiday without much money and without much hope. In fine, we thought we were done - kaput - that we were going to be axed for some reason or another. But when it was my turn to go visit the Man at the end of the hall in the Man at the end of the hall's office, I was given a certificate and a shiny silver medal, was congratulated for wearing my armband at all times, and was then ordered to take off this armband, give it to the Man at the end of the hall, and then, the Man at the end of the hall gave me a white and pink armband to wear at all times to promote another corporate slogan and product.
It was the first time I'd ever been in the Man at the end of the hall's office, and so far, the last. The office was everything everyone had told me it was - the only things previously told to me about his office that were not true had to do with the family portrait. You see, the artificial tree in the Man at the end of the hall's family picture wasn't a tree at all, but a scraggly little dog. Another thing that wasn't true: it was picture-clear that one of his fat girls was frowning, but the other seemed to be smiling, or maybe grimacing. And his wife was far from fat - she was better looking than Lil and had twice as much cleavage gleaming from the glossy as Lil ever wore to work on a holiday-to-come Friday.
And the picture within a picture? This was a myth spread around like bad medicine, as well. In the picture within the picture, the Man at the end of the hall was photographed alone, holding a big fish on a string. He was smiling like a conqueror. He was smiling like he wanted to kill the fish. He smiled like he wanted to kill anything and anyone. It was then that I knew this man was so sane he was insane. It was then I knew I didn't care if my job with the corporation was secure, for now, at least. I knew I was a small fish in the biggest of ponds and that son-of-a-pirate was the big, bad shark. And it was then that I knew I better talk to my brother about working at his shoe store downtown.
