Mario Muscar

 

Rush Job

by Cory Strode

 

 

Rich had barely settled into his desk when the call came.  The police told him that Joe, one of the artists who worked at “High Action” publications had been killed on Friday.  He’d been hit by a subway train after falling onto the tracks.  They had no further details, but they were calling because they knew it was his place of work, and they had no information on next of kin.

 

Rich set down the phone without telling the officer he would do so and asked his secretary, Angie, to bring him Joe’s file.  She didn’t ask why after looking at him and seeing his face, pale with shock.  He sat back down and picked up the phone, apologizing to the officer for setting the phone down, and when Angie brought him the file, he leafed through it to find Joe’s emergency contact.

 

He’d written “Doctor” in the space.  

 

Any other time, Rich would have laughed.

 

“Sorry, officer.  He left no information,” Rich said, ending the call.

 

The offices of High Action Publications were small.  Only his office, six desks for editors and his secretary, and a small room for the artists to work in if they were running late on deadlines.  The floors were polished, dark wood, the walls were painted with dark colors, giving the office a feeling of somberness even on sunny days.  

 

It was just after 9 am on a Monday, and most of the other people who worked there didn’t show up until after 10 am.  Many of the editors also wrote stories for the magazines, so they would often stay up late at home, writing, and then come in to have the other editors work the stories over to get them in shape for publication.

 

Rich called Angie into his office and let her know what had happened.  She was a young girl, fresh out of high school, and always looked like she was playing dress up in her business dresses.  She started crying, and Rich handed her a box of tissues and said, “We’ll shut down for the day once everyone has come in.  I’m sure we’ll find out the arrangements.”

 

She nodded and went back to her desk, shutting the door behind her.

 

Rich went through Joe’s personnel file.  He’d started working there in 1963 and produced more covers and interior art pieces than anyone else in the 7 years he worked there.  He rarely worked at home, saying he didn’t have room for the paints he used for covers, and preferred the office’s art board to whatever he could find.  Rich had thought he worked in the office so that he wouldn’t be alone.

 

Joe had been a quiet artist who had incredible speed. More than once he had painted a magazine cover in record time when another freelancer blew his deadline.  He had a love for bourbon, and usually had some in a mug as he painted, but didn’t need it when he did pen and ink drawings.

 

He was also generous, kind, and was always willing to help around the office when he was there. He did paste ups, proofreading, ad placement, and even took calls when Angie was away.

 

Rich stared out of his office window at the bullpen and remembered Joe wandering around from desk to desk, getting ideas for magazine covers from the editors.  He wasn’t begging for work, he was usually bored and looking for something to do.

 

Now, he wouldn’t come in any more.

 

As other staffers came in through the morning, he met them at their desks and let them know what he had heard.  Most hadn’t heard, but when Big John came in, Rich could see by how he walked, he already knew.  John was a bear of a man, and he normally walked in as if he were late for everything.  That day, however, he walked slowly, his eyes focused downward, his shoulders slumped and his face more dour than usual.

 

When he got to his desk, he looked around and said, “So everyone knows?”

 

:”Yes,” Rich said, sitting down in the chair next to Big John’s desk.

 

“I knew I should have stayed at the bar longer Friday night.  After we put ‘Manly Adventures’ to bed, I asked everyone here if they wanted to go to the Corner Bar to celebrate hitting the deadline and Joe came along with us.  I left to catch the train and ask if he was coming.  He was working on a blonde waitress who wasn’t brushing him off and said he’d be closing the place down.  When I read the paper…” he trailed off.

 

Rich put a hand on his shoulder and said, “You can go home if you want.  We’re not going to get much done this week.”

 

“I’d rather work,” Big John said, “if I go home, I’ll just keep thinking I should have got him on the train instead of letting him stumble to the station.  There have been a few nights I had to prop him up on the train to get him home.”

 

“He was an adult.  He could take care of himself,” Rich said.

 

“Obviously not,” was Big John’s answer.

 

Rich went back to his office and worked on the paperwork they would need to send the insurance company, the payroll department and other forms needed when someone would no longer be working.  

 

No longer be working, A nice way of saying dead.  Rich tried to put the morbid train of thought to bed and concentrated on filling in the empty lines in the typed forms.  The office phone rang a few times over the next half hour, and Rich didn’t pay attention as Angie picked each one up.  By the time he was done, everyone who worked in the office had come in, been informed, and was given the option to go home.  

 

No one did.  They all wanted to work, and Rich saw they were all working in silence, mostly on tasks that didn’t require a lot of thought.  Pasting up ads, light accounting or even cleaning their desks.   No one moved to clean the things that Joe had left in the office.  Small art supplies on Big John’s desk. His coffee mug was still next to the art board.  His bottle was still in Angie’s bottom desk drawer.

 

Right before noon, Angie knocked on Rich's door, and he waved her in.  She shut the door behind her and said, “I have a woman on the phone who wants to talk to you.”

 

“Please take a message, I want to get this paperwork done.”

 

“You’ll want to take this call,” she said.

 

Rich trusted her, as always, and picked up the receiver and said, “Hello?”

 

“Is this the man in charge at the magazine company?” came the female voice on the other end of the phone.

 

“Yes,” he said, watching Angie leave his office and wondering what this was about.

 

“I saw in the paper about that artist who worked for you passing away.  It’s a terrible thing.  Just terrible.  My son was coming home from work that night and told me what happened.”

 

“Was he there?”

 

“No, no, no,” the lady said, “he was on the next train, but there were a lot of people who did see it.  He asked them why the trains were late and a nice gentleman told him it was because a woman had fallen onto the tracks, and a man jumped down to help her back on the platform.  She was able to get up, but he didn’t.  He saved that lady’s life.  I saw in the paper that a man died on that platform, and my son told me it had to be the story he’d heard.  I wanted to send flowers to that poor man’s wife, can you help me?”

 

“He wasn’t married, ma’am,” Rich said, “He was a bachelor and spent a lot of time here at the office.  We don’t need any flowers, but I want to thank you for calling.”

 

Rich had trouble getting her off the phone.  She wanted to know if there was anything she could do.  Her husband had died in a similar accident.   She was grateful for the neighbors who had helped her and she wanted to do the same for other people.  Rich thanked her and eventually agreed to a deli tray being sent to the office some afternoon.

 

After he ended the call, he gathered everyone together and told them what the woman had said.  He then said, “I’d like us to run his story in all of our magazines this month.  Use one of his covers, and if we don’t have enough new ones, use one of the older ones.  We’ll pay him a tribute and let people know he was a hero.”

 

He went back to his office and was going to get back to work when Big John knocked on his office door.  Rich nodded, he came in and shut the door behind him.

 

“What is it?” Rich asked.

 

“I don’t think that story is true,” John said, his normal booming voice barely above a whisper, “He was drunk when I left at nine.  If the accident was at midnight, I doubt he was drinking sody pop to sober up for those three hours.  He was on a bender.”

 

“We don’t know, John,” Rich said.

 

“He wasn’t happy, Rich.  He felt like he’d pissed away his life, and had nothing to show for it.  He spent most of the night talking about how his paintings were on newsstands for a month and then gone.  He didn’t have a kid, didn’t have a wife, and he felt like he’d wasted all of the money his parents spent sending him to art school.”

 

“I know he wasn’t happy.  Happy people don’t start drinking at ten in the morning.  But, we have a woman who says he was a hero, and goddammit, we’re going to let people know he died a hero.  Just because he was a drunk didn’t mean he couldn’t do the right thing.”

 

“I suppose,” Big John said.  He got up quietly and then turned and said, “I don’t mean to disrespect the dead.  You know that, right?”

 

“I know.  It’s all right.  We’re all pretty shook up.”

 

After Big John left, Rich couldn’t concentrate on Joe’s paperwork anymore, so he decided to work on invoices until the end of the day.  Mindless work until he could go home and spend the night with his wife.  Get away from this office and the pain hovering in the air.

 

After lunch, most of the staff didn’t come back.  Rich walked through the office and put the work they had left unfinished on their desks away, and started cleaning, just so he could be doing something that didn’t require thinking.  Angie always took a late lunch and came back with the afternoon paper.

 

She gave her copy to Rich and said, “It’s on page 10.”

 

Rich didn’t ask what, and instead opened the paper to page 10.  There was a story about a man who, late Friday night, had attempted to move between cars on the train, got disoriented and fell onto the tracks and was killed by a passing train.  It did state in the story that the police weren’t giving any information, and that it was near one of the platforms and the story was from “eyewitnesses.”

 

Rich gave it back to Angie and said, “It’s a tabloid story.  They talked to a couple of people, not the police.  They are usually about as accurate as the psychics in the horoscope magazines.”

 

“But,” she started.

 

Rich stopped her and said, “The story says the police didn’t talk to them.  That means either they said it was crap, or they didn’t bother to fact check.  We know more than they do.”

 

To Rich, that was the end of it.

 

The next day felt a little better, and on Wednesday, they were told that the funeral would be Friday.  Rich told people that the office would be closed on Friday so that they could attend.  Joe’s parents were dead, he had no siblings, and Rich was sure they would be the only people in attendance. 

 

By Thursday, all Rich could think about was that he didn’t want to be alone when his time came.  He wanted someone to be there for him at home.  He wanted family and friends to be able to take care of the arrangements rather than someone from the state like Joe.  The deli tray had arrived, with a kind note, and people had told stories about Joe as they made sandwiches.  There had been laughter for the first time since Monday morning, and the gloom finally started to lift.

 

The office had not fully returned to the fun, busy place it had been the previous week, but Rich felt they were on their way.  People were talking again, ideas for cover stories were being discussed and Angie didn’t break down crying every hour like she had done on Monday and Tuesday.

 

Around four in the afternoon that day, a policeman showed up in the office.  He was an older officer, in uniform, and had a dour face from having to tell too many people bad news.  He was brought to Rich’s office where he was offered a seat.

 

“No thank you,” the officer said, waiting until the door was closed.

 

“How can I help you, officer?”

 

“I was told that there was an artist here who was killed in an accident on Friday night,” Rich nodded and the officer went on, “he had no family and you are listed as his contact, so we wanted to let you know the results of our investigation.  From talking to eye witnesses, we determined that he fell onto the tracks after having too much to drink.”

 

“We had heard he saved a woman who had fallen onto the tracks,” Rich said.

 

“No one stated that, sir,” the officer said.

 

Rich thanked him and ushered him from the office.  He watched as the officer went to deliver bad news to whomever was next on his list and thought about the tribute they were putting together for Joe.  He shut the office door, and Big John asked, “What did the officer have to say.”

 

“He said Joe died a hero,” Rich said, smiling and heading back to his office. 

 

He finished his daily tasks and was putting his things in his briefcase when Angie came in and shut the door behind her.  “What is it?  I was about to go home.”

 

“I heard what the officer told you,” she said, “and the hero story isn’t true.”

 

“So what?” Rich said.

 

“All of our magazines will be telling the wrong story.  We’ll have it out there and it’s not true.”

 

“It doesn’t matter.  We aren’t a newspaper. We aren’t reporters.  Will anyone be hurt thinking that our friend was a hero when he was someone who killed himself with booze?”

 

When Angie finally said “no” it was as quietly as she could talk and still be heard.

 

“Then we say that he was a hero.  And we never tell anyone that he’s not.  I think that’s a better gift than flowers, don’t you?”