hello
Big Hand Print
This man, Bill Lexx, as I was about to find out, was
standing in front of the third story men's bathroom window when I went to use
it this morning. Outside the window, not inside the bathroom, but on the
outside, in a suit, which I might add was not a three-piece, and he had taken
his tie off; his socks didn't match the color of his suit. I only noticed that
because I sit down when I pee. I know a lot of men don't do that, or would
never admit it, but I do. My grandmother taught me it was impolite to be heard
using the bathroom, period.
So, I'm sitting on the toilet, and
this man, Bill, I guess he heard me, because I had to put the toilet seat down,
you know, so I could sit on it, and it clanged against the porcelain base of
the toilet. And he turns around and stares at me. Thank God I hadn't taken my
pants off yet. I'd sat down on the toilet to retie my shoes.
I forgot to mention that.
See, Margie, the secretary in my
office, made me untie my shoes when she was getting off the elevator. I mean,
accidentally, made me untie them. She goes down to the basement to smoke
instead of outside, says she can't completely appreciate a cigarette outside. I
had walked a little past the elevator, not meaning to not speak, and then felt
guilty and didn't want to be rude so I turned around to speak, and in the
process of turning around, I stepped on my left shoestring.
She couldn't have cared less.
The elevator doors shut. So, I
took the stairs up to the next floor to go to the bathroom. The bathrooms
weren't designed with common sense in mind, just the safety of each gender. The
building itself has only had one renovation, and that was out of necessity due
to Camille, back in 1969. Nothing else has ever been done to alter its
appearance, not even for convenience. It found its way onto the National
Registry, about a hundred years after it housed Confederate soldiers; now, it
exists to depreciate history.
The men's bathrooms are on every
other floor.
And right as I got to the third
floor, I saw Mr. Yola and got nervous.
That's how my other shoe got
untied because I stepped on my right shoestring when I saw him, but I couldn't
stop right then to tie either of them back because I thought Yola had seen me,
and even though I was just going to the bathroom, he'd find some way to make me
feel guilty for it. He's now the number one man at the Shipping office, and has
been since Mr. Leman was found dead floating around Lake Tia O'Khata, last
July. Yola's a true Mississippi gentleman; he doesn't have any children. He was
mumbling to himself and had a rather glossed look to his face; I just went on
to the bathroom, and sat down on the toilet to tie my shoes.
And I don't know what I was
thinking. But after I tied my shoes, and this man, Bill, you know, is still
staring at me — I told him his socks didn't match his suit.
"What?" Bill mouthed.
He couldn't hear me; the window
was closed. I got up and opened the window…however, it's that old kind of
window that opens out instead of raises up, so I had to ask him, I had to raise
my voice, to scoot over to the left a little bit so I could push the window
out.
"What!?"
I tried not to raise my voice,
first, and mouthed back at him, instead. You know like you do when you're in a
car and you're talking to someone else in another car, like at a stoplight, and
maybe you know them.
"Scoot over to the left. I
cannot open the window. It opens out, not up."
I motioned with my arms to
indicate what I was asking him to do. After a second or two, he caught on.
I pushed the window out, and then
we had another problem. The window got stuck. See, the windows are tall, and
they're plain glass, by the way, not frosted like in the ladies' which all
bathroom windows should be, and when I pushed them open, they split, you know,
one went out to the right and the other to the left. And the left one, on
Bill's side, got stuck. I did try to close it back when I realized he couldn't
then step around it, but it wouldn't budge. If the left window had gone all the
way back to the wall of the building, he could have gotten around the window
and crawled back into the bathroom. But, as it was, he couldn't move, and the
men's bathroom on the third floor is the last room on that floor, on the east
side of the building.
Basically, he was trapped. There
wasn't any other window for him to go to.
I forgot all about peeing.
I leaned out the window, and
looked through the glass at him.
"Hey! I was just trying to
tell you your socks…didn't match…your… suit."
I don't know what the hell I was
thinking.
Then, you know what he did; he
started to cry. And I don't mean simple crying, I mean deep crying — drool was
stringing down from the sides of his lips, cutting off into drops — falling the
length of three floors.
I can't believe I told him his
socks didn't match.
I don't know what the hell I was
thinking.
II
Eight minutes ago, Mr. Yola fired Bill, without remorse,
without regret. I'd passed him, Yola, on his way back from Bill's office,
apparently. The things I wouldn't have known if I hadn't gone to the bathroom,
huh?
Bill Lexx (and he was very exact
with this, methodical) said it took him six and a half minutes to climb out of
the break-room window and around to this side of the building. He took two
steps a minute, precisely, except at the corner. Bill Lexx was very thorough
about this process; I imagine he's rather good at his job: an accountant. Or,
you know, used to be. He was also very anxious to explain himself.
Of course, this side of the building
faced the executive parking lot.
I didn't know why that was
important, at first.
Bill Lexx's wife is pregnant with
twins. She doesn't have a job. Bill had a wonderful health plan through the
company. Two months away from five years in the same position. Raises usually
start around then. It was the perfect job for a man of exactitude, as he seemed
to be.
Bill says he has no idea what
happened to the money. I believe him.
Then, again, the tears.
"I signed the papers, I
signed off on them, the papers…I know that it it it it it came to the office.
Alicia knows…. She can…she she…she'll tell you that!!" Margie may smoke,
but at least she's efficient. But, then, I didn't really know Alicia, other
than she'd worn a cotton antler headband with bells on them, at the last three
Christmas parties.
It must have been a large amount
of money.
I looked down below us. You know,
three stories is not all that high. I mean it's not so high that people can't
notice you, especially when you're standing on the ledge outside of the
building. But nobody even looked at us; none of the people walking by paid any
attention.
He quit crying.
And, then, Bill Lexx asked me to
forgive him.
"Tell me you forgive
me!" He was becoming irrational.
So, I told him.
"I forgive you."
What harm could it do? If it
helped him to realize what he was doing, if it helped him think rationally, you
know, why not, I'd do it. I mean, I did it. Maybe in a bizarre way I was
speaking for the company, you know, to him. I don't know. At the same time, and
it hit me all of a sudden, it…it seemed an enormous responsibility for me to
forgive this man.
You know, when I first came to
work here, the Crisis Management Team, from Community Counseling — their
offices are across the street in the Bancorp South building — was hired by this
company to conduct a seminar on "Suicidal Tendencies in the Workforce."
I didn't go.
I didn't have suicidal tendencies.
I don't think outside the box very
well, I guess.
"Bill, I know you
haven't mentioned jumping off, from, from here, and I am
hoping it's because you are changing your mind if that was your original
intention."
"I, I….I just, I…" He
stuttered. I waited for more.
There was no more. He just stood
still.
I couldn't help but feel
frustrated. Then, he started sobbing again.
"Your wife is pregnant, Bill!
You can't forget about that! She needs you; those babies will need you! So you
lost your job. You'll get another one!"
I didn't believe that myself. It's
hard to come back from being fired.
He got so mad he hit the window.
Glass splintered everywhere, down
to the ground and all over the ledge.
Then, I peed my pants. I have a
fear of ingesting glass; my father was an alcoholic.
Thank God none of the glass hit
me.
This would have been a lot
worse if we'd been in a kitchen, I thought, Be glad we're not in a
kitchen.
His hand was bleeding, naturally.
I ran to the sink, to the towel dispenser and ripped out one of those big rolls
of brown paper towels that seem to thrive in industrial buildings. God, I bet
that company makes some money.
Maybe they were hiring.
I tried to tear off a large sheet
of it, but Bill Lexx reached through the broken window, grabbed that whole roll
and threw it straight to the ground. He didn't seem to care that he had glass
stuck in his hand, a few brittle shards embedded around his knuckles.
"Bill. Come inside. Please.
Don't jump. I mean, look, look! You popped out the glass, you can crawl
through, at least…I can get an ambulance…the hospital's only a block or…"
"Shut the hell up. Shut up.
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up."
And I'm thinking it's amazing that
not one single man has walked into this bathroom yet. We must have some
powerful bladders in this building. I was actually starting to get pissed off,
you know? Why did I have to deal with this? I wasn't all that close to Bill
Lexx; we don't even work in the same department. God, why did I even look at
his damn socks.
Still, I was in the middle of it
now.
Here I was petitioning for an
arbitrary man's life, rallying for his unborn twins and pitiful wife, for his
seemingly indiscriminate purpose for living.
Bill stopped crying and stood up.
He had alternated half-stand to crouch for most of his confessional. He was
bleeding all over his suit, it was navy, a polyester blend, and the empty
window frame. He put his hand on the brick wall of the building, preparing to
fully stand, I thought.
His hand had such a large spread.
His shoulders relaxed, and he
leaned against the wall, standing straight up. He must have been over six feet
tall. I guess that's how I saw his socks to begin with; his pants didn't quite
fit the length of his legs. He grabbed onto the window frame.
My left hand had been holding,
white-knuckled, to the glassless frame stuck on the ledge; my arm shot out to
grab it when he first started to stand up, for support. I guess I was so
nervous, I'd forgotten — as I backed away, you know, to give Bill Lexx room, I
backed away holding to the window frame. That with the pressure of Bill's
weight must have been exactly the force needed because we dislodged the window.
And while I was standing there, my crotch wet from urine, unable to let go of
the window frame, Bill Lexx sucked in a quick breath, his hand slipped from the
brick, and over the side he went, without exhaling.
I want to say he fell at the same
speed as the brown paper towel roll, according to physics, but he didn't. He
fell in slow motion, he did.
I watched him all the way down to
the pavement; he landed a few feet from an illegally parked dark blue Lexus.
Not too many shades different in color from his suit. A passer-by might have
assumed he came with the car, or had tripped out of it, consumed by an aneurysm
that had caused a terrible nosebleed. For the fall to be such a significant
one, the result was relatively neat and contained.
I guess I killed him. Not that I
like admitting that to myself.
It certainly hadn't been my
intention. And, I suppose it doesn't even matter now what color his socks were.
But, so you know, they were a light green, like a pistachio.
Argyle, even. Never seen a pair
like them since.
I hope I never do.
done
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