Snake-Eyes

May 11th, 1996 Posted in Cubicle Blues

When I was six years old there were people I liked and people I hated. I played G.I. Joes with the people I liked. I kept my G.I. Joes safely out of sight from the people I hated. It was that simple.

People worthy of my disdain would never see my Destructo action figure. They would never see my Snake-eyes Joe doll. Snake-eyes had action grip and could cling to objects. My enemies could have led richer lives with this knowledge. If only they hadn’t crossed me. Ah, to take the path less travelled.

I pretend to like people I hate now. At work. After work. One of the first passages into adulthood, it turned out, wasn’t that I should stop playing with dolls, but that I should share them with everyone. I hate myself when I pretend to like these people. I didn’t used to hate myself. A six year old version of me throws rocks at their car as they drive by. A young me shits in their yard. A present-day me laughs at their jokes about “those Mondays,” and I know my six year old me is disappointed. He’s about to throw rocks at MY car, and I can’t blame him.

I don’t want to show Snake-Eyes’ action grip to Frank Garrow in Marketing. Frank Garrow is an asshead. He smells like someone drank soya sauce for a week and crapped in a diaper. He laughs at everything anyone ever says. He suspects everyone, stabs anyone in the back.

Cubicle life does this to people: he is making decent money at a job any idiot could do, so he has to protect it from fresh untalented professionals sniffing at the gates. He stabs backs with surgical precision. The noble cheetah would do the same in this position. It is only a method of survival, I know. So I hate Frank Garrow AND the noble cheetah. It’s just easier.

Every day we chat like fishing buddies. I never tip my hand that I hate him, and he’s always friendly to me. And somehow, we both know damn well we can’t stand each other. I ask about his weekend every Monday. Every Monday he tells me about his weekend. I couldn’t tell you what he does with his weekends if you paid me. I tune out and stare at him and think white noise for thirty seconds. Sometimes I imagine I’m flying over the building, dropping grenades into open windows while I laugh one of those old time hands-atop-hips laughs that Robin Hood used to laugh. Let’s say it’s on a Monday. Just to make Frank Garrow happy.

Here is the worst thing I ever did to someone: I took some of my ball sweat and put it on the rim of their Pepsi.

Obviously they weren’t looking at the time.

They got very sick for one day or two days. Then they got better and their life went on as it always did. I won’t tell you what they did to me to deserve this retribution. I would rather have your shock than your empathy. I would rather be a mysterious villain than an ordinary gentleman. I would rather hate my enemies than ask about their weekends. I would rather, in a nutshell, be Clint Eastwood in “A Fistful of Dollars.” He seemed to have his shit together. He never had to deal with Microsoft Word.

Prehistoric man would take Frank Garrow by the hair from his cave. Yelling his displeasure, Prehistoric man would beat Frank Garrow in the fucking forehead with a buffalo femur. Frank Garrow would clutch at his temples. He would never get a chance to see Prehistoric Man’s G.I. Joes, because he’d be beaten to death years before the dawn of man. Only a puddle of soya sauce would be left.

I would go about my business, blowing on the remote control to my time machine transporter as one would a smoking revolver. And I’d get back to work in peace.

Next Monday I will ask how Frank’s weekend was. I will laugh at his jokes.

I wish Snake-eyes was here. He is skilled in the deadly arts, and never hesitates when confronted.