One Hundred and Seventy One

Last Friday I finally did what I’ve wanted to do since I returned to the company.  After I gave my report at the weekly meeting, I said I was quitting. Then I walked out of the conference room and out of the building.

I was exhilarated at first, but by the time I got home I was having second thoughts.

I quit because I’d had enough.  Not only had I had enough of the company, but the previous day I’d checked my bank account and was surprised to see how much I’d saved while working there.  I‘d spent little of the money I was being paid, and was banking most of it, so obviously I didn’t need it. I had enough.

But although this was true now, what about later? What if I should have an unexpected expense?

So Monday morning I went in to work as usual.  But as I was telling Mark I’d changed my mind about quitting, he told me it was too late.  Don was too angry at me to allow me to come back.

Of course he was angry.  He’d asked me to come back after eight years and save the company, as he put it.  I worked there for a few months, then quit. 

I moped around for a few days, depressed by my stupidity, but finally decided I had done the right thing for me, if not for the company.  I was not the captain of this sinking ship.

This morning Bob telephoned to tell me George had died. 

The first day I returned to the company, Bob told me Rick was no longer with us.

“Most of the people I worked with eight years ago are no longer with the company”, I said.

“I mean he’s dead,” Bob said.  Then he showed me the file he’s keeping of former company employees who have died.  I thought it was an odd thing to do, but Bob is odd.  So are they all.

He said George had died of what the newspapers called unknown causes.  Lorna had kept his corpse in the house for a year until neighbors complained about the smell to the police. 

The newspapers referred to Lorna as George’s girlfriend, but I doubt their relationship was sexual.  Eight years ago everyone assumed Lorna was my girlfriend for no better reason other than she and I were the only unmarried members of the office staff.  We did date for a while because she expected it, and I didn’t want to be rude, but eventually she accepted that our relationship was going nowhere.  That's when she went after George.

When George and John were laid off, I worried what would happen to George, and was glad when he moved in with Lorna.  He needed someone to look after him as much as she needed, or thought she needed, a man.

Office staff at the company didn't fraternize with warehouse workers, so I gave Lorna credit for crossing the class barrier; and for perseverance, because it couldn’t have been easy talking to George.  He was retarded, so whenever I went back to the warehouse I always talked with John or Mark while George stood and listened. 

The day they were laid off, George and John both came to my office and said good-bye to me.  

“Why did they say good-bye to you, and not to any of us?” Susan asked me afterwards. 

“Did you ever go back to the warehouse and talk to them?” I asked.

“No, of course not,” she said.  

“I did.”  So did Lorna.

Lorna lived near me, and I used to see her out in the yard when I was taking my walks.  I knew she was living with George, but I never saw him.  She never invited me into the house, and he never came out.

When Don asked me to come back to the company, he told me to ask Lorna if she’d come back, too.  I said I would, and later I told him she wasn’t  interested.  In fact she had stopped talking to me by then.  I could see she was declining mentally, but she wasn’t my responsibility (and Linda was living with me at the time, so I had enough to cope with).

It’s not that odd people are drawn to me.  It’s that most people are odd.  Not only are they odder than we know. As Haldane said, they’re odder than we can know.