I sit here worrying what to do next
How do those around me seem all set?
That guy in the sunglasses (It’s not bright in here)
If I’d see his eyes, think I’d see the same fear
Many years on the job, stuck on the same rung
No longer learning, no longer young
Filed under Poetry
Gray rails curve left
They guide the slowing commuter train
One more mile before the downtown station
Through the window
I study the west skyscrapers
Against the morning’s light-blue background
The tallest building rises black
Its straight edges sharp
All the way up
And just above
Is the wisp of a cloud
White and round
Wait…that’s not a cloud
It’s the moon!
That tower is nowhere close
To touching it
Friday night, ten o’clock. Mark sat at home at his desk, at a laptop keyboard. He loved the weekend because the week had exhausted him, and for now he could slow the stream of work worries into his head. He looked past his laptop, at the RadioShack transistor radio he kept. Thought back to high school, physics class, electronics. A capacitor stores and releases a charge. The experiment during lab, a capacitor misconnected straight to the power supply. In less than a minute the tiny, powder blue can exploded with a loud crack, yellow smoke, and acrid fume.
Mark looked at the laptop screen, the e-mails to get through: requests from clients, design problems from analysts, defects logged by testers, expense questions from finance. His organizing skill got him this job. But so much came so fast that he misfiled things. The thoughts had nowhere to go.
He turned on the radio. Could have streamed the station through his laptop, gotten better sound quality with the external speakers. But he liked the radio. It was simpler.
The weekend jazz show. Saxophone and piano and a woman’s smooth voice. Years ago. In moments it took Mark from his two-story, beige, vinyl-sided house, between suburbs and farmland, to Chicago’s Loop. He had paid the fifteen dollars and now sat to the side, alone at a small round table, a flame flickering in a dark red glass with a bubbly texture, a green bottle of Heineken in his hand. No calendars or clocks. Safe in the darkness, with the live music and live strangers, the occasional passing siren and flashing blue lights. He watched the young woman sing, the thin dress close to her slim body. And once in a while she’d look right at him. Her brown eyes reaching into him. He enjoyed just watching and listening, and imagining, to the notes of the piano keys, the brushes on the head of the snare, the meandering low-tone of the stand-up bass.
The piece ended and Mark ordered another. As the next number began he welcomed it, breathed it in, absorbed it. Until the beer and piercing sax bore into the place of his floating thoughts. That’s when Mark came back. Back to his house. His head on his desk and keyboard.
Filed under Fiction
It had been a week since Mark last encountered Woodman. Mark didn’t believe that he lived on the corporate grounds, not full time. He thought back to the worn tent and the reused campfire pit. Woodman was spending some time there, more time than anyone else. But Mark wasn’t that interested in Woodman’s lodgings. What Mark wanted to know was whether Woodman really did have inside information regarding his project.
On Wednesday as the sun was setting, and car after car was coasting to the campus exit, Mark walked out of the building and onto the trail. If Woodman really was living out there, Mark would find him. And he did, at the same half-mile point on the circuit. Woodman wore blue jeans and a red flannel shirt, and he was sitting on a lawn chair, head down slowly flipping through a thick packet of white, eight-and-a-half by eleven inch sheets of paper. Mark could see black text printed on the pages.
“Hey there Woodman!”
Woodman jumped. He flipped the packed into his tent and stood up. “How’s it goin’ Mark? You’re out here late.”
“Well I thought I’d come out and check on you.” Mark joked lightly, “see if you needed anything.”
“No, no. I’m fine.” Woodman reached up to his cap, removed it, scratched his thinning hair, and replaced the cap.
Mark went right to his question. “Woodman, how do you know what’s going on with Project-X?”
“Mark, when you’re on the company grounds as much as I am, you start noticing things.
“Like what?”
“See this small group of trees that my tent is inside of?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know what kind of trees they are?”
Mark looked smug. “Well the white bark kind of gives it away. They’re birch trees.”
“Correct. But there are many species of birch tree. Do you know what specie they are?”
“Woodman, who cares? I want to know how you know about my project.”
Woodman placed his hand on the white trunk, and looked up at the leaves. “These are silver birches. They aren’t native to America.”
“So?”
“Like I said, when you’re on the company grounds as much as I am, you start noticing things, understanding things.”
“But Woodman you’re outside.” Mark moved his head and looked at the trees surrounding them.
Woodman removed his eyeglasses, pulled a cloth from his pocket, and cleaned a lens. He then held the glasses out above his eyes, peered to make sure the smudge was gone, and put them back on. “You know Mark, I’ve learned more about this place being outside than I’d ever learned inside.
“How’s that?”
“Stuff from inside gets outside.”
Mark doubted it. “What stuff do you mean?”
“Well to start with, let me ask you. Before you leave work each day, do you put your discarded paperwork into the large locked bins? Like the ones at home that you roll to your curb, but the office ones are padlocked and have just a narrow slot for inserting paper.”
“I know the bins, Woodman.” Mark didn’t like where he was leading. “You’re taking discarded paperwork?”
Woodman shook his head. “No, I don’t get anything from the locked bins. The shredding service has the only key and each bin is unlocked only for a moment when it’s being emptied into the shredding truck.”
Mark couldn’t figure out what Woodman was getting at. He didn’t think that Woodman was a threat to him or his coworkers but he felt like he should respond. “Good to hear our paperwork is safe from you.”
“But it’s not.”
“Woodman, you just said you can’t get into the bins.”
“Right. Mark, do you know that on Milwaukee Avenue about ten miles toward the city, there’s a bar…”
“Woodman, what does that have to do with discarded paperwork? And there’s tons of bars on Milwaukee avenue. Look, I gotta go.”
Woodman called after Mark. “Sometimes at night I can’t sleep. I get bored of lying in my tent. So around midnight I take a drive. I go down Milwaukee and stop in at that bar.
Mark called back. “Later Woodman!”
Woodman called again. “Midnight’s about when the cleaning crew is done.”
Mark stopped and turned. “What?” And walked back toward Woodman.
“Those cleaning guys, and even some of the women, they go to that bar.”
Mark had tired of Woodman’s nonsense, but it now seemed that Woodman was nearing his point. “And?”
“I hang out with ‘em.” Woodman said as if anyone would do the same. “Only for one drink though. One drink for me that is.”
“You hang out with the people who clean the office?”
“I buy ‘em a round or two. Vodka. They like vodka.”
“And that gets you what? Guys patting you on the back, raising their shot glasses, sharing their stories from the motherland?”
“Mark. The company rule is for everyone to put their discarded paperwork into the locked bins before they leave each day.”
“Again with the locked bins? Woodman, I’m getting bored with your conspiracy theories. If you want me to listen, I’d rather you tell me what happens at the bar.”
Woodman continued to control the conversation. “Mark, do you put your discarded paperwork into the locked bins before you leave each day?”
“You’re obsessed! No!”
“How often do you empty your bin?”
“Oh I don’t know. When it gets full. Maybe once every few months.”
Woodman repeated Mark. “Once every few months. You’re like everybody else.”
“So?”
Woodman stepped toward a low, large stump, the top of which had been evenly cut. He sat. “Mark, the cleaning service is taking documents out of the small bins at each desk, before employees dispose them in the large bins. They don’t take much at one time. No one is noticing.”
Mark responded with monotone sarcasm. “Fascinating. The cleaning people skim our trash. Can they even read it?”
“Hold on there Mark. That’s a cliché. Just because they’re cleaning people doesn’t mean…”
Mark stopped him and clarified. “Woodman, I’m not trying to insult them. I’m trying to insult the people I work with. Hell, I don’t understand half our communications, especially our systems analysts’ white papers. Anyway, what benefit does the cleaning crew get from stealing our paperwork?”
Woodman answered with a smile, “It gets them free nightcaps, and it gets me free reading material.”
“Come on Woodman! You want me to believe that you’ve learned about Project-X from the recycling? Only pieces of information can be pulled from the bins. You’re not getting the full correspondence which is via e-mail, and the project documentation which is on the network.”
Woodman’s playful smile turned mischievous. “Did you forget that I can find e-mails?”
“I remember. You could…” Mark emphasized the past tense, “back when you were an employee.” He could no longer hold his frustration. “Shoot Woodman. Now you’re just a squatter and a garbage collector. You make yourself out like you’re in the know. But you gotta be on the inside to be on the inside.”
Woodman looked at Mark with the warm smile of a parent teaching his child.
“Mark, do you ever work from home?”
“Yeah, on Fridays.”
“And when you’re there, can you get your work done just as if you were at the office?”
“I can.”
“And what do you have at your house?”
“Now wait a second Woodman.” Mark had tolerated Woodman’s questions about the office, but he was bothered by this attempt to expand their conversation.
“Mark, all I’m asking is what technology do you have at home that lets you do what you need to do?”
Woodman knew, but Mark answered anyway. Like a child responding to a teacher.
“An Internet connection, my work laptop, and a cell phone.”
Woodman nodded toward the slanting gray canvas within the trees and he lowered his voice. “The same stuff I have in there.”
“Didn’t they take away your laptop and deactivate your login when they let you go?”
“They did.”
“But you can still get into the network?”
“Yep. Justice set me up with a new laptop and a network ID.”
“What?”
“Yeah! I’m a contractor now. But no one is to know.”
“Not to know? Come on Woodman. Your name will be in the e-mail address book. People will be able to see you on instant messenger.”
Woodman laughed. “Justice set me up as an offshore contractor.”
“What?”
“I’m Betula Pendula.”
“Betula Pendula?”
“Yeah.” Woodman’s face lit up with pride in his alternate identity. “Google it sometime. That’s why I’ll work for Justice, he puts thought into things.”
“This is your other job? You’re working for Justice?”
“I am.”
“Woodman, why are you even telling me this?”
“Because I need your help.”
Filed under Fiction
Mark just wanted to be home. He had come into work on a Sunday to make tomorrow easier. And he accomplished what he had wanted. He finalized the presentation materials and submitted them to the color printer. He could have waited at his desk for the exhibits to complete printing, but instead he walked the corporate trail. In the wooded part of campus he discovered former coworker, Woodman, fishing the pond. Recreation inside the corporate fence? There had to be more to Woodman’s being there.
“So come on Woodman, what are you doing out here?”
“I told you, I’m fishing.”
“And the grill?”
“In a little while I’ll eat.”
“And the tent?”
“After I eat I’ll turn in for the evening.”
“Turn in? You’re camping? Out here?”
“Camping makes it sound temporary. I’m staying out here.”
“Staying?”
Woodman reached his arms partway from his sides. He turned at the waist, and looked contentedly around at the corporate woods. He smiled with acceptance and said, “This is my home.”
“Woodman, you live in Lake Zurich.”
“They foreclosed my house, Mark. The bank’s got it now.”
Mark’s brown eyes became sincere. “Sorry ‘bout that Woodman. I didn’t know. But come on, where are you really living?”
“I told you Mark. I live here.”
“But what about Nancy? Don’t tell me she’s in the tent.” Mark said this with a smile and a bit of a laugh, hoping that Woodman would quit the joke.
Woodman dropped his head and shook it slowly from side to side. “No, she’s not in the tent.” He looked up at Mark. “With everything that’s been going on, my losing my job, us falling so far behind on our payments. We were fighting every night. Real fights.”
“Sorry about that Woodman. Sorry I mentioned Nancy.”
“It’s okay, you didn’t know. Anyway when the bank changed the locks she went to her arborist, and I came here.”
Mark tried to keep everything straight but thought he’d misheard something. “Arborist?”
“Yeah. The woman she’d have over to care for our trees. Nancy didn’t like the way I did it. She said I fell off the ladder too much.”
“She ‘went’ to her arborist?”
“Yeah, she lives with her now. In a double-wide trailer in an unincorporated area not far from the house.”
Mark watched Woodman wipe his eyes.
“But why are you here? Why aren’t you in an apartment or something?”
“Here is free. It’s helping me catch up on my payments.”
“The company lets you stay out here?”
“We have an agreement.”
“An agreement? The company and you?”
“Well, Justice and I.”
That name surprised Mark. “It’s Justice who’s letting you stay out here?”
“Yeah. And no one else is to know about it.”
“Justice is the most play-it-by-the-book guy in the company. Why would he let you stay out here?”
“Justice wants people to think he plays it by the book.” Woodman’s mind seemed to suddenly switch tracks and he pulled from his vest a folded paper, as if just to make sure it was there. He just as quickly returned it to his pocket.
“Mark, remember what happened a couple years ago at the Christmas party? And that complaint that was filed against Justice by the woman who managed the help desk?”
“Yeah, the legal department interviewed everyone who had been there. I was surprised after it all that Justice kept his director position. Why do you bring that up?”
“By letting me stay out here, Justice is returning a favor.”
“He’s what?”
“At that time I was postmaster of the company e-mail system.”
Mark sensed a long story starting. “Woodman, I have to get back to the building, and to get home to where I live.”
“Just another minute. The key to that woman’s complaint was a few e-mails she said Justice had sent her.”
“I remember the rumors about that.”
“But there was no evidence of the e-mails. She didn’t print them or save them.”
“I remember that the office was split about who was telling the truth.”
“She was.” Woodman said as a matter of fact.
“What? How do you know?”
“I saw the e-mails.”
“Where?”
“On the system,” Woodman paused, “as I deleted them.”
Mark’s eyes widened and his mouth opened, but he didn’t respond.
“Like I said Mark, Justice is returning a favor by letting me live out here.”
“You call living out here a favor?”
“It beats paying rent or a mortgage.”
“But Woodman, you’re good at…at whatever it is you do. Why don’t you just get another job and get out of here?”
Woodman looked as if he had expected Mark to know. “But I do have another job.”
“What? Look Woodman, I gotta get back inside. Maybe I’ll see you another time.”
“I’ll be here Mark.”
Woodman turned and disappeared into the trees. Mark walked away at a fast pace, a pace that turned into a run.
I’m taking a balloon up
Not the hot-air kind
No patchwork of red, yellow, green, and blue
This is a weather balloon
Silvery-white, semi-transparent
Filled with so much helium
It’s as big as a high-rise
And the basket?
It’s not wicker
It’s a space capsule
I’m not just going up
I’m going WAY up
It’s the slow way
Will take a few hours
Liftoff
From dust-devil desert
Hanger and airstrip
I rise
Over tan and green plane
Two-lane highway below
Cars smaller, slower
A sideways breeze
Moves me toward
A low mountain ridge
And I can see over it
A mile up now
I switch on the heat
And glance down
Sandhill cranes flying south
Five miles up
My breathing is faster, deeper
I switch on the oxygen
Spot in the distance
The nose of a jumbo jet
Cruising toward me
Ten miles up
It’s cloudless and dry
THIS is the stratosphere
The beginning of it
I’m gunna’ keep going
Up
Near the TOP of the stratosphere
Where the sky gets dark
Dark blue
The edge of space
But I didn’t rise here
To look around
Nor to explore
I came up
To go down
To jump
From a height
No one has jumped from
To fall
A distance
No one has fallen
Hydraulic hiss
And the capsule’s round door rolls to the side
Letting in the sky
And the smaller earth
Twenty-four miles below
Protected by my space suit
Parachute scientifically packed
This is where I get off
Space helmet tilts only so far
So with thick glove fingertips
I feel for the seatbelt
Fumble at the latch
Belt comes free and drops
I shift my chair to the opening
To sky and earth
Gloved fingers fumble again
At last link between suit and capsule
The oxygen line
With a clumsy tug I detach it
I pull myself outside
Onto the step
I stand
Above the world
Tan and green
See its curve
My heart starts pounding
My breathing becomes rapid
And…
I don’t remember
Why I’m here
Standing alone
In space
I’m terrified
Like when I was a boy
What am I gunna’ do?
I’m afraid of falling
Of my stomach lifting
The earth pulling me back
Never wanted me to leave
Pulling me faster and faster
To jet speed
Then breaking the sound barrier
My body
In a space suit
Tumbling
For minutes
I have no control
Can only breathe
And pray
That I make it
I’m standing
Above the world
Tan and green and curved
Heartbeat quiet
Breathing slow
I can’t go back into the capsule
Can’t do anything but…
Mark walked to the east exit and stopped at the glass doors. He tapped his badge to the card reader and a tiny light switched from red to green. He pushed the horizontal bar and stepped outside, the conditioned air following him into the real air. His shoes scuffed the gravel which led away from the building and split into a Y.
He chose counterclockwise to walk the grounds. The shade of the building tried to keep him. But he picked up his pace and the building and its shade fell behind. He had escaped, into a bright clearing. To his left the northwest pond appeared, afternoon sunshine reflecting onto blinding ripples. The sight of water poured through Mark’s eyes and into his mind, dissolving his work thoughts.
Felt strange on a Sunday. Empty parking lot. Empty building. No one else on the corporate campus. They were all home, or somewhere else, enjoying the sunny and warm weekend. This is not where Mark liked to be, but he wanted to prepare for Monday’s meeting. Relieved now that he had finalized the fifteen pages of talking points and exhibits, he needed to be here just an hour more while inside an inkjet printer sprayed color onto the pages.
The red gravel crunched under his shoes as he increased his pace. He fixed his eyes downward as he thought one more time about the material. Did he leave anything out? No. This task was done. He had given it the clarity the VPs expected. Confident, he looked up and freed his mind of work thoughts. He now could see the blue sky, the tree tops, and the green field. But the landscape seemed unnatural within the corporate fence. The company maintained the grounds too well. Did the squirrels get performance reviews? His was scheduled for Monday, immediately after the presentation.
Looking far ahead to the left of where the narrow ribbon-path disappeared into the trees, Mark saw the pond’s neat edge of white rocks, and what looked like a gray plastic bucket turned upside down. Next to it was a small Y-shaped branch propping up a slanting pole, its line running taught into the water. As he got closer to the set-up he began to hear tinny music from a transistor radio. It was the Doobie Brothers’ “Black Water.”
And I ain’t got no worries, ‘cause I ain’t in no hurry, at all.
Fishing? Strange. Must be a maintenance guy. Mark felt his walk spoil. On a Saturday or Sunday, if he had to be here, he wanted to be alone. Now he would have to interact. But there seemed to be no one else around.
He followed the path into an area with trees on both sides, the pond’s edge disappearing behind and to the left. This part of the path became shaded. The tall trees–ashes, oaks, and elms–were close together, blocking much of the afternoon sun. Squirrels bounded, crashing through the dried leaves. Birds fluttered low, from branches on one side to the other. A garter snake slipped across the path. If this had been outside the fence, it could be creepy. But this was corporate property, fenced in. During weekday lunchtimes this trail attracted a lot of walkers. The employees loved their time outside the building, like prisoners given a few minutes in a courtyard.
Mark was passing the one-mile sign, the circuit’s halfway point, when he saw something. He had seen deer here a few times, but this wasn’t a deer. He stopped and peered to his right, away from the direction of the pond and the building, into the deeper section of the woods. He started to make out what looked like a gray tent, and bent over in front of it, the back of a green camouflage jacket. The back of a man, on his haunches, lighting a short charcoal grill.
The man looked up and noticed. His greeting was of pleasant surprise. “Hey Mark! What are you doing here on a Sunday?”
Woodman? Mark couldn’t believe it. He was both relived and surprised to see someone he knew from the product development area. “I’m working, Woodman. What are you doing here?”
And as if he was here every Sunday, Woodman replied easily, “I’m fishing.”
Woodman stepped from the trees to the path. He wore weathered blue jeans, and his open jacket showed a clean t-shirt. The blue ball cap he wore had no emblem. His brown eyes looked warmly at Mark through designer eyeglasses. “How’s the project going?” Woodman nodded in the direction of building.
“It’s starting to come together. The presentation is ready for Monday. It shows the overall design and the rollout plan. I’ll also ask for funding.”
Mark expected Woodman to be pleased. Instead he was straight-faced. “There’s something wrong with it.”
“The presentation?” Mark became frustrated.
“The project.”
“What do you mean? There are always lot of issues at the beginning of a project.”
“This is different, Mark.” Woodman’s face became serious. “If this new product goes in the way the new V.P. wants it to, the company will be breaking the law.”
Filed under Fiction
Evening work is interrupted
By the tone of a text message
I’m late again
I stand up from the cubicle chair
And realize the darkness outside
Inside fluorescent reflection
Tries to mask a single white light
The rising full moon
From behind the lake it rose
Yellow, round, magnified
Silhouetting the boats
And I was too busy
To watch it with her
The traffic current pushes me home
An hour lost
At the curb I pull mail from the box
More to do
Tomorrow’s work day speeding toward me
I flip closed the box and look up
The moon is higher, smaller
But still worth attention
Bright and familiar
Light plains and dark seas
A few white spots radiating white streaks
It’s what Man has always seen
Over caves, pyramids, and coliseums
Above teepees, great walls, and castles
It’s the same moon
So I rocket to it
Reflect off
And visit the past
To fool myself that life had been easier
Without cars, highways, and corporations
Without advertising, TV, the Internet
But sometimes I know I’m fooling myself
So instead of reflecting off
I land on the moon
I wonder at the deep craters and sharp mountains
The black shadows of scattered boulders
The absence of air, water, sound
I create my own path
Through the gray, powdery plain
And take time to think
Each of my thoughts to its end
That’s when I find myself
At Tranquility
I look across the dry sea
Into the blackness of space
And wait for the earth to rise
Brilliant blue, white clouds swirling
That’s when I rocket back
Walk into my house
Put everything aside
And be with her
Filed under Poetry
July, midday, the sky is white
Sunlight straight down
Wind blows hot
Yellow grass doesn’t let go
From gray earth
Broken, into thick polygons
No birds
They’re in the bushes or the trees
Waiting
Wasp’s flight zig-zags
To and from the comb
Paper geometry on wooden deck
Lawn chair empty, cushion bleached
Garden hose coiled and dry
Metal box hums electric, hypnotic
No people
They’re inside
Waiting
A mile away
On the beach
It’s not as hot
The water’s here
Whooshing in
Whooshing out
On thin yellow legs seagull runs
Reaches white wings out
Returns to hovering, looking, asking
I step into the cold Great Lake
Green toward the horizon
Clear straight down
Threshold of stone-sand
Painful under my feet
Gives way like mud, pulls me to my ankles
I escape, stepping further out
Onto the bottom of flat-sand
My knees and thighs submerge
I continue
Cold water rising
Between legs, above waist
Over stomach and chest
Coldness squeezes me
Takes my breath
A wave rolls into me
My feet rise from the bottom
The water’s covered my shoulders
Sweeping my arms
Pedaling my legs
I breath easily
My entire body cooled
Exhilarated
Removed
Lake swells higher
West cloud mass, blue-black
Far away, flashes and rumbles
I swim ashore
Corners of beach towel lift
Uprooted umbrella rolls in colors
There’s still time
To make it home
To be there for it
Gray-black sky bending backyard trees
Green leaves and twigs in air
Sideways mix of dust and rain
Gray-black sky sending groundward Zs
Of branching neon
Thin and jagged
A startling crack!
Then loud rumble rolling
Ground shaking
Air cools suddenly
Wind gives way
To gray downpour
Birdbath overflows
Into mid-yard moving stream
Clear water drowns the grass
Rush of raindrops
Removes the stored heat
From roof, driveway, sidewalk
Electric hum clicks off
Deck door slides open
A ruffled robin begins to sing
Filed under Poetry
Evening freighter on the east horizon
Small but very large
White in the setting sunlight
Stays on the horizon
Like the sailboats
Safer when shore’s in sight
To be on it
Small crew, a bunch of freight
Chicago to Milwaukee?
I used to be more imaginative
From halfway around the world
Crew speaking a different language
A mariner sees me sitting
Why is that man alone?
Hiding in such a place?
Soon it will get dark
And I will turn
Turn my back to the sea
Walk up the hill
Into the trees
Return,
To what will bring me back
Filed under Poetry
Jim's Writing 