Goodbye, Harvey

Memorandum

To: File

From: Frank Flounder

Date: 12/18/10

Subject: Goodbye, Harvey

Today I went to a meeting. During the meeting, the Managing Partner praised me because I stole more money than anyone else this year. My colleagues began to clap. I excused myself and returned to my office. I'd left an interoffice envelope for Harvey containing an autographed picture of Wolf Blitzer. The envelope was still there.

I went to the mailroom to speak with the supervisor. 

"Harvey?" he said. "He 'aint come in again. When he gettin' back? Dunno, man. Maybe never. People do that in this line of work. They come and they go."

I told my secretary that I was not feeling well and left early. I went back to Harvey's apartment building and parked outside.

Eventually, Harvey's neighbor appeared. He was wearing a thin robe and walking a small dog. The dog growled menacingly as I approach them. 

"He's gone," the neighbor said. "Saw him last night. Said he was going somewhere. Don’t know where. He's not much of a talker, never was."



Indeed, I said. 

***

I took a walk down Harvey's street towards the river. At the river's edge there is an abandoned park. There are needles on the ground, and the ground is bare in many places. There is an old bench there, covered in bird shit. Across the river, the city shimmers like fading coals. I took my tie off and sat down.

I spotted something poking out of the ground, not far from where I sat. I rose to investigate: it was a stuffed elephant covered in paisley cloth. One of its glass eyes was missing and the stuffing was poking out in places. I stood there for a time, and thought about the child that left it there, and whether things become easier to forget as they fall apart, because they aren't pretty or useful any more, if they ever were to begin with. 

I dusted off the elephant and put it under my arm. I think, someday, I will send it on. 


F.F.

The Outskirts

Memorandum

To: File

From: Frank Flounder

Date: 12/17/10

Subject: The Outskirts

I have retrieved Harvey's home address from the mailroom and am standing outside his apartment building. My mission has been unsuccessful.

Harvey lives in a converted warehouse on the outskirts of town. There are no people here and the warehouses stand like sentries along the empty streets. The river is three blocks away. It smells of oil and rotting fish.

I went to Harvey's building and convinced someone to buzz me in. I claimed to be an investigator, which is true. The building is dim and sunlight creeps through giant, dirt-caked windows. I knocked on Harvey's door, but no one answered. Eventually, a neighbor, his face gaunt and unshaven, peeked out from a nearby apartment.

"Do you know the man who lives here?" I said. 

"Maybe," the neighbor said.

I approached him. He tried to shut his door, but he is old and not as quick as he once was.

I shoved a business card through. "If you see him," I said, "tell him we need to talk. It's important."

The neighbor opened his door and took my card. He was naked from the waist up. His ribs were showing.

"You ever seen his paintings?" I said. 

"Harvey?" said the neighbor, quizzically. "Far as I know, he's a mailman."

"Mailperson," I said. 


F.F.

When You Find Him, Let Us Know

Memorandum

To: File

From: Frank Flounder

Date: 12/16/10

Subject: When You Find Him, Let Us Know


Harvey has not stopped by my office to pick up my mail. He is late. Eventually, I call the mailroom. 

"Yeah, we gonna send somebody," they say.

"I don't want somebody," I say.

"Harvey 'aint reported to work today," they say.

"Where is he?"

"When you find him," they say, "let us know."

***

Somebody has come to collect my mail. I have prepared a half-eaten turkey sandwich that is destined for the Director of Human Resources. Suddenly, I do not feel like sending it.

I call the mailroom and request Harvey's home telephone number. I leave a message asking him to call me back.

"It's about a painting," I say.  

I do not hear back. 


F.F.

At the Stupid Fundraiser

Memorandum

To: File

From: Frank Flounder

Date: 9/27/01

Subject: At The Stupid Fundraiser



I am at the fundraiser. There is a stage with a large sign above it that says "Art for Orphans." There are many people laughing. Most of them are laughing at things that are not funny, but it is easier to laugh, so they do it. I am laughing too.


Paul spots me. He is drunk.


"What'd you donate?" he says.


"That painting over there," I say. 


"The Mona Lisa?"


"That's the one," I say. "Framed it and everything."


"Right on," says Paul. He slugs back a full glass of scotch and stares into the crowd. He begins fidgeting with his wedding band.  


"Paul?"


"Yeah?"


"You heard any rumors about Judith—the paralegal?"


Paul looks like he might be sick. Paul started sleeping with Judith a week ago.


"Why?" he says. "What have you heard?"


I pretend to look at Paul like he's crazy. He excuses himself and walks away. 


***


The fundraiser is over. The cleaning crew has arrived. I am slumped over in an uncomfortable wooden chair. A member of the staff is slapping my face. I get up, slowly. 


As I am about to leave, I notice a large painting of a street in twilight. The street leads to a distant downtown, and in the foreground is an old post office with grand, broken steps, and low yellow lights peeking through the windows. The street is empty, save for a man whose form is smeared in shadow, walking head down toward a clutch of spires sprouting like grass on the horizon. 


I steady myself, but the room is spinning, and I hear the distant roar of that downtown place: the click-clock of a pretty woman's shoes and the growl of important men taking international calls. And I am on a street corner, watching for a man coming from Somewhere Else, surfing the bloodstream, and my temples ache. 


Back in the ballroom, I stumble over to a table where the marketing director has finished counting up the night's earnings. She is almost ready to go home. 


"Who did that painting?" I say. I am leaning on the table so that I do not fall down. 


The marketing director smiles in a way that lets me know she is not really smiling. 


"I don't know," she says. "It was donated anonymously."


"I want to buy it," I say. 


"I'm sorry," she says, "the books are closed."


"I'll give you $10,000," I say. 


Her face softens. She knows that I am rich and is considering whether I am serious.


"How generous of you," she says.  

F.F.

Talking to Your Partner About Genital Herpes

Memorandum

To: File

From: Frank Flounder

Date: 12/14/10

Subject: Talking To Your Partner About Genital Herpes

This morning I met a client in a park across the street from the courthouse. We were killing time before a hearing, the purpose of which was to determine whether or not we could steal money with the court's blessing. We had a very good case.

My client told a joke. It was a joke I'd heard several times before, but I pretended to have never heard it. My client is particularly fond of this joke, and so had already started chuckling, like an engine trying to turn over. I stood on the tips of my toes in anticipation.

Not far from us, a skinny black woman was sitting on a park bench. I noticed her because she was talking to herself. Her bony arms were stretched across the back of the bench, and her head was thrust backward so that she was staring straight up at the sky. She was crying.

My client delivered his punch line, and we both laughed. Afterward, I said things that made the client feel that he was very funny and intelligent. Then, I checked my watch. It was time to head into the courthouse.

When I got back to my office I decided to step up my Random Object Sent to Random Person campaign, starting with a pamphlet that I sent to Paul entitled How To Talk To Your Partner About Genital Herpes. In the interest of thoroughness, I carefully flagged and highlighted sections that seemed important. I also enclosed an unsigned note that says: "Paul, you might want to take a look at this."

Harvey arrived just as I was sealing the envelope. I handed it to him but did not let go.

"Just a minute," I said. "You're my mailperson, right?"

Harvey studied the floor, his tiny eyes blinking furiously behind his coke-bottle glasses. I got up from my desk and moved closer to him. It was the closest I've been to anyone in three months, with the exception Judith, my paralegal, with whom I had sexual intercourse two weeks ago.

"Harvey," I said, reading his nametag, "what do you do when you're not doing this?"

Harvey didn't look up. His lips were dry and he smelled of sweat. Against my better judgment, I clasped my fingers around one of his hairy wrists.

"I paint," he said, finally.

I had never heard Harvey speak before. His voice was high, like a violin.

"What do you paint?" I said.

Harvey took a deep breath. I wondered whether this was the longest conversation he'd ever had.

"The mail, I guess."

My hand relaxed. Harvey was still looking at the ground. His skin was pale, the same color as the walls, and his clothes were dull calico. Strangely, as he backed into the hallway, he became nearly invisible, until all that I could see were his little eyes, fluttering madly, like the shutters of a movie camera. Then, even the eyes were gone. Harvey disappeared back into the labyrinth.

F.F.

For the Orphans

Memorandum

To: File

From: Frank Flounder

Date: 9/25/01

Subject: For the Orphans

I am headed to the pantry where there is a machine that makes instant coffee that tastes like fresh-brewed coffee. The office is still buzzing about yesterday's bomb scare. Paul, a colleague, intercepts me:

"You going to the fundraiser tomorrow?" he says. Paul is my age. Over the years, our bodies have developed the consistency of boiled veal. 

"Fundraiser?"

Paul scratches his stomach. It stretches taut against his shirt. 

"For the orphans," he says. 

Several weeks ago, a disaster struck our city that, apparently, created many orphans. My law firm has decided to hold a fundraiser by auctioning off artwork donated by the employees. The event will be heavily covered in our client newsletter. 

"I don't know," I say.

"Free booze," Paul says.

"Okay," I say.

F.F.

Trotsky

Memorandum

To: File

From: Frank Flounder

Date: 12/12/10

Subject: Trotsky

I am sitting in my office, counting. I do this to help build my concentration. I am up over 4,000 when Harvey comes in. Harvey has been my interoffice mailman for the last three years. We have never spoken. 

Harvey has a wide face and coke-bottle glasses that make his eyes look very, very small. I suspect that if I ever saw him without his glasses, he would look quite different, but I have never seen him this way. 

Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I note that Harvey is called a "mailman" and not a "mailperson," even though many mailmen are women. I debate asking Harvey about this, but do not want to break my concentration. 

Harvey picks up an envelope from my outbox and leaves. The envelope contains a small voodoo doll that vaguely resembles Leon Trotsky. It will anonymously land in the inbox our billing coordinator by noon today. I do not know the billing coordinator, nor do I know anything about Leon Trotsky. This will be the fourth random object that I have sent to a random person in as many weeks. 

I have also enclosed a separate set of pins, individually gift-wrapped, should the billing coordinator wish to use them. 


F.F.

This is not a test

Memorandum

To: File
From: Frank Flounder
Date: 12/11/10
Subject: This is not a test


Today I awoke to the sound of an alarm blaring outside my office door. This happens from time to time. I rose from my couch, glanced in the mirror, and pressed my hair back into place. It was 9:00 in the morning.  

My fire safety director's voice crackled through a hidden loudspeaker. I have heard this voice many times—most often in connection with issues related to fire safety. Today, however, my fire safety director informed us that there was a suspicious vehicle parked in front of our building. Outside my door, a woman screamed. My fire safety director asked that we immediately move away from the windows. While he did not say so, we were asked to do this to mitigate the effects of an explosion.  

I got up and went to the window. Lights flickered atop the squad cars gathered below as uniformed men cleared the street of living things. Barricades sprung up as swarms of fire engines gathered behind them. Soon, the street was empty, save for a lone van that sat like a stone some three hundred feet below. As I watched this scene, a man slipped through one of the barricades and proceeded to walk down the street in great, determined steps, and though there were dozens of people there, it was as if no one saw him; firemen readied their hoses and policemen barked orders into their walkie-talkies, yet no one so much as glanced at this man, as if he were a newspaper, blowing through the square. Then, he crossed another barricade on the far side of the street and was gone. 

It was the strangest thing. 

And so I pressed my forehead against the window and felt my weight against it. I watched and waited. Perhaps, I thought, today will be different from yesterday. 


F.F.

Depression

I go to see Dr. Scalioni on Tuesdays. Dr. Scalioni is my therapist.

His office is in a brownstone on a tree-lined street on Manhattan's East Side. It is a quiet street. I have a sneaking suspicion that no one actually lives in these houses anymore, and that they have all been converted into therapist's offices. I would take some pleasure from this but for the fact that it is too cold to take much pleasure from anything, and so I find myself scurrying between my office and Dr. Scalioni's, too miserable to take note of all the other Manhattanites racing to make their own appointments.

Dr. Scalioni's office is full of books and a strange yellow light that makes him look creepy. He is creepy enough as it is – his thick belly and scragly white beard makes him look like Santa Claus, if Santa Claus were a sex offender – but the yellow light adds a sickly pallor that is off-putting. Behind his head, a large clock reminds you how much time you have left.

I began to see Dr. Scalioni because I learned that someday all the stars in the universe would someday go cold. This was a traumatic moment for me.

Our first meeting went something like this:

“So, Mr. Furlong, what brings you here?”

“Well, as I understand it, someday we’re all going to freeze to death. ”

Dr. Scalioni’s eyes brightened in a manner designed to signify “encouragement.”

“Really?” he said, “tell me about that.”

Credit: Gary Larson

It was pretty much downhill from there. Dr. Scalioni studiously avoided saying anything about anything, prefering instead to let the patient babble on for 60 minutes at a time, presumably under the assumption that this exercise would eventually lead to some form of self discovery. Inasmuch as I was not seeking self discovery, but rather an answer to how to survive a solar burnout, I eventually opted to simply sit and stare at the man until our 60 minutes was up.

Over time, Scalioni and I grew to hate each other – I hated him because he could not solve my problems, and he hated me because I knew he was a fraud.

Our sessions always began as follows: I would sit down in the leather chair in his study, and he would sit in a chair directly across from me. Before he sat down, he would grab his foot and pull it under his rear-end so that when he sat down, he was sitting on one leg and it looked like a foot was growing out of his ass. It was one of Scalioni’s many eccentricities.

One day I was sitting in Sr. Scalioni’s chair, talking about my problems. He was looking at me reproachfully. He didn’t look reproachful often – I think they are taught not to look this way in psychology school – but it happened every now and then.

“I havn’t seen you in a while,” said Scalioni.

“I know,” I said. It was true. I had become depressed and I knew seeing Scalioni would depress me further.

"In point of fact," I said, "my emotions have been on a see-saw lately, going back and forth between something like depression to something else entirely."

"Oh," said Dr. Scalioni, "and what is that?"

"Rage," I said.